sepia toned
by witchywho
Summary: Like the broken voice of a child searching for hope, singing softly. "Somewhere over the rainbow..." / SIOC, crossposted to AO3. Rating will change. 05/101 chapters.
1. Arc 1: Part 1

**A/N: Cross-posted to AO3 under the url polyxena_chatoyant. Author notes for chapters one and two are copy pasted from there.**

* * *

October in Konoha has always been chilly, so when Kizashi wakes up to find that his wife has stolen the blanket he's a touch exasperated. He rolls over on their large bed and, yes, there Mebuki is. Or rather, the lump of blankets that is Haruno Mebuki. Her head barely peeks out, strands of orange hair a contrast to the dark green blanket. Kizashi reaches out to try and tug at a corner of the blanket; maybe he can just slide under and they can cuddle?

But no, the idea crumbles to dust as Mebuki mumbles in her sleep and tugs the blanket back to her. He can't even find it in himself to be irritated, a smile growing under his scratchy, dusty-pink mustache. The sound of her sleepy mumbles, sometimes even speaking in her sleep, is cute. His wife deserved the blanket anyways, he decides. She was keeping warmth not only for herself, but also for their little miracle.

As Kizashi gets up and out of bed, moving carefully and quietly to avoid waking Mebuki, he thinks about their unborn child. Not for the first time, he remembers how astounded the medics and doctors were when Mebuki became pregnant again, so shortly after Sakura had been born. Their eldest daughter's birth had been complicated, wrought with fear that the baby would even survive. By all accounts, Mebuki would never again have children.

Kizashi steps into the nursery adjacent of their bedroom, walls painted a soft yellow and security seals hidden in the paint. There are two cribs in the room, one newly built and the other occupied. His daughter's chakra is smooth, settled; she's fast asleep. Kizashi pulls the rocking chair from the corner, the old one his mother had given him when news of Mebuki's first pregnancy was announced, and settles in it next to Sakura's crib. He can barely fit in it, and the wood is cold against his skin. Perhaps he should have put a shirt on.

Kizashi peers through the wooden bars of the crib. Sakura, small and pink skinned and hairless, is swaddled in a blanket and surrounded by plush toys. He traces his eyes over her face, the large forehead, Mebuki's nose - she's perfect. He doesn't dare pick her up for fear of waking her. It's the first time that she has slept through the night, Kizashi realizes.

"Kizashi?" a tired, grouchy voice says softly from the doorway between rooms. Kizashi straightens from where he was leaning close to look.

Mebuki, draped in their bed's blanket and wearing only one of his long-sleeved, blue uniform shirts, leans against the doorframe. Her belly, round and large, pushes out against the fabric. She's frowning, green eyes bleary and barely awake. Kizashi wants to reach out and smooth her wrinkled forehead, but settles on grinning at his lovely wife.

"Good morning, darling," he says. "Decided to steal Sakura's blanket, too?"

Mebuki rolls her eyes, huffing a breath, but pulls the blanket over her shoulders tighter. "Why would I need her's when I have this nice one?"

Kizashi relaxes against the back of the rocking chair, holding out a hand to her. She steps further into the room to stand next to him, letting his hand engulf her small one. "Because you're greedy, love."

Mebuki smiles at him, and he wonders how he ever landed someone so beautiful. "Only with you."

Kizashi pulls her close and presses his cheek to her belly and closes his eyes to feel their unborn child's chakra. It's barely there, a tiny spark of flame that, compared to Sakura's, makes his other daughter seem like an inferno. It is there, though, ever growing and fluctuating despite its small size.

"I was thinking that today we could go to the Market," Mebuki says, threading her fingers through Kizashi's hair, which was a mess. "We need more fish and I was thinking of trying my hand at sushi."

Kizashi's eyes pop open, cheek still pressed against her belly button. "Are you sure about that? We can always go to that one Akimichi restaurant you like for dinner…"

Mebuki tugs on his hair, though he barely feels it. "What, do you think I can't make sushi?"

Memories of her previous attempts at cooking make his stomach clench. "O-of course not, love. I was simply thinking of taking you out."

He can feel the rumble of her quiet laughter, and hears Sakura shift in her sleep at the sound, rustling her toys. "Well we can do that, too, but for lunch I'm going to make sushi and ramen."

Kizashi gives in, simply thankful that she wasn't going to cover them in cheese. That was one craving he found absolutely revoluting, covering everything in cheese no matter what it was. Dango? Covered in cheese. Vegetables? Covered in cheese. Sandwiches that had no right to have cheese on them? Cheese.

Mebuki leaves the room to go get dressed and Kizashi heads to the bathroom to make himself presentable for the world. The bathroom is a mess, the sinktop covered in various tubes and bottles, the trashcan overfull. At least, his portion of the bathroom is, and he looks longingly at the clean, orderly medicine cabinet that Mebuki had claimed as her own when they moved in.

It takes Kizashi and hour to get ready, where it takes Mebuki twenty minutes. Mostly because he spent so much time styling his hair into the cherry blossom shape he'd started doing after Sakura was born. Dressed in his standard Chuunin uniform, with the loose black pants taped to his ankles and the long-sleeved navy blue shirt, he heads down to the kitchen. His flak jacket hangs off his favorite chair, next to Sakura's high chair where their daughter sits, now fully awake.

He beelines for the infant, grinning as she cooes and smiles at him when he gets within reach. Her chubby fist encloses on his mustache and tugs, hard. Mebuki, carrying three plates to the table, bursts into laughter at his facial expression. She's dressed in warm leggings and a sweater, and he grumbles internally that he wishes _he_ were on leave and able to wear something so comfortable.

"She takes after her mama," Mebuki giggles, setting the plates down.

Kizashi closes his open mouth and gently pulls Sakura's hand off his mustache. "How mean, Saachan. So mean to papa."

Sakura, with no understanding of language but every bit as sadistic as his wife, laughs. He melts at the sound, bright like bells. Her eyes are finally losing all traces of the newborn blue, and he knows that they'll be the same shade of green as her mother's.

After breakfast, Kizashi dresses Sakura in a cute purple onesie before putting a soft hat on her naked head and strapping her to his chest. He stands in front of a floor length mirror with his hands on his hips and grins, shaking his shoulders to bounce Sakura. She erupts in giggles, waving her arms.

"Today will be a good day, Saachan," he says confidently. Sakura shrieks with laughter as he reaches up to tickle at her feet. "But before it can be a good day, we've got to indulge your mama. Sushi and ramen, what a weird combination. Your little sibling is so strange."

He hears Mebuki call for him and heads for the front door. When his wife seems them she snorts, reaching up to cover her smiling mouth. Kizashi loves the way her eyes crinkle in the corners when she smiles like that, and leans forward to press a whiskery kiss to the hand covering her lips.

Outside, the sun shines on their neighborhood. It's a nice neighborhood, in one of the residential districts closer to the Hokage Tower, and the trees lining the streets are a mixture of red, gold, and brown. Some of their neighbors are out and about, and greet them as they pass. The midmorning chill makes him shiver, and he pumps chakra through him to keep warm, and then to the seals sewn in Sakura's onesie to keep her warm as well.

The market, when they get to it, is busy. It always is at this time of day, but Kizashi has never minded. He enjoys talking with everyone, stopping he and Mebuki's walk every few minutes to chat with someone. Mebuki bares it with a smile, not the most extroverted person herself.

They've only just gotten to their preferred fish stand when it happens.

A sound not unlike an explosive tag goes off, far in the distance but with such force and strength that the ground underneath their feet rumbles, a sharp wind kicking up dirt from the road. The dust hasn't even settled when, with a roar that he only belatedly realizes can actually be heard, a _terrible_ chakra spreads through Konoha, the killing intent behind it enormous.

Sakura wails. Mebuki screams, holding her stomach as her knees buckle and it's only instinct that has him reaching forward to catch her. All around them, civilians run screaming as a figure larger than a mountain rises above Konoha. Kizashi grew up on the stories of the Sage of Six Paths and how he gave the world Chakra and sealed nine demons, the Bijuu, away - he puts a name to this monster almost instantly in his mind.

The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. The Kyuubi no Kitsune.

It's large enough to block out the sun, casting a shadow that encompasses the entirety of the village, its form a bubbling mass of red-orange chakra. Its tails sweep out around it, and trees slam into the ground under the force. He can't make out much of its face but the demon opens it's maw and pours out flames onto the village.

"Kizashi!" a voice screams in his ears. "Kizashi! Move!"

It's Mebuki, dangling in his arms and clutching her stomach. Sakura is still wailing. Around them the market is a a rampage of people pouring towards the Hokage Mountain, where the evacuation tunnels are. Sirens wail and he can see the elite black-ops shinobi, the ANBU, pouring over rooftops like a wave of black water towards the demon. As a sensor, Kizashi is overwhelmed, the vile, hatred-filled chakra of the Kyuubi filling his senses.

"Kizashi, _fucking move_!" Mebuki screams, fingernails digging into his forearms and drawing blood. "Get me to the fucking hospital!"

At that, Kizashi's blood starts pumping again, but cold instead of warm. He looks down, almost expecting to find a gaping wound, but instead he sees that her leggings - once a soft grey - are soaked. Her water's broke.

 _What a terrible time to be having a baby_ , he thinks distantly.

And then he gathers his wife fully into his arms, gathers his chakra into his legs and pushes up and forward, heading straight for the Hospital. Shinobi race in the opposite direction, all of them baring weapons as they go to defend their home. He would join them if he wasn't busy defending his most precious home, his family.

As he nears the Hospital he sees that Mebuki is not the only pregnant women panicking. There are dozens, clutching their stomachs in pain as they stand amongst the wounded. He has never seen the hospital so full, has never seen so many civilians hurt and bleeding, since the end of the Third Shinobi War only a few years ago. Kizashi had thought that would be the end of it, thought there would finally be peace, and wonders what nation had decided to end Konoha like this.

 _Probably Iwa_ , he thinks derisively.

"Medic!" he shouts into the fray, like so many others. "Medic! My wife's gone into labor!"  
One of the nurses running about beelines towards them. She's young, pale faced and hard eyed, with her forehead protector, her hitai-ate, tied around her neck. Her scrubs, a pale green that label her another Chuunin like him, are already splattered with blood.

"This way!" she shouts over the noise.

The operating room she leads them to is filled past capacity. Where there should only be a single patient, three beds have been squished in along the operating table, each of them a different woman in labor. Kizashi places Mebuki down where he's told, on the far left bed. Instantly Mebuki is swarmed by medics, their hands glowing with green healing chakra.

Sakura is still wailing in his arms.

A hand grips his left arm, pulling him back and away from his wife. Mebuki has started to scream in pain. Kizashi almost breaks the hand that pulls at him before turning to look at who it is. A man with purple hair and grey eyes, who looks at him with understanding and quite a lot of fear.

"We need to get out of their way," the man says. "For our wives and children."

There are two other men, he notices, without scrubs on. They stand off to the side, pressed against the wall, eyes locked onto their spouses. One looks almost catatonic and the other cries openly, sobbing into his hands. Kizashi looks back at Mebuki and lets the purple haired man, a civilian by the way his hands aren't calloused around the shape of a kunai, tug him off to the side. He stands in the far corner of the operating room, his hulking figure almost comical in how he attempts to make himself appear smaller, wrapping his arms around Sakura as she continues to cry. Medics run in and out of the room, their hospital scrubs covered in blood. His wife is screaming.

The world is ending, both outside and in this room.

Kizashi closes his eyes and tries to focus on Mebuki's chakra, feeling the way it sputters and contorts against the blanketing chakra of the demon raging destroying their village outside. The Kyuubi's chakra poisons everything it touches, spreads far and wide over the village as it destroys their home, large section by large section. It's hard to push past, acidic and cloying, but he's spent years memorizing how to spot Mebuki's chakra.

 _Let them live,_ he prays to any higher being who will listen. Shinobi do not live religiously, but he's out of options.

* * *

The hospital is cold. It keeps him steady, feeling the chill of the air. Through the windows he can see the dawn rising over the horizon, the spirals of smoke and destruction standing out against what should have been a beautiful sunrise. Sakura had tired herself out to exhaustion with her screaming, and she sleeps fitfully against his chest. She seems to be the only one able to stop screaming.

He and the three men from the operating room had long been ordered to leave the operating room. They sit together in the waiting room, amongst the injured who have yet to be seen and the people looking for family, hoping against hope that the Kyuubi didn't kill them. Kizashi doesn't know any of their names, but none of them move to sit elsewhere.

"Haruno Kizashi?" a voice calls and he snaps his head up. It's the nurse from before, her brown hair pulled back into a ponytail that's falling apart, grey eyes locking onto him.

"My wife, is she okay?" the words tumble out of his mouth like broken glass. "Our baby?"

The nurse is short enough that she doesn't have to sit down to be at eye level with him, as he is squeezed into a too-small hospital chair. "Mebuki-san is resting, we were forced to do a c-section and she lost quite a lot of blood. She'll recover. Your daughter is in the NICU, where she is being treated for chakra poisoning. I can take you to see them both…"

Kizashi knows Mebuki, knows how strong she is. If this Nurse had said Mebuki was dying he'd be hard pressed to believe her, and thus knows that his wife will be fine. His daughter, his newborn daughter who doesn't even have a name yet?

"Take me to the NICU," he says.

The halls are filled with patients, the rooms all filled to maximum capacity. Even in the areas with no windows there is visibility, the light of healing chakra casting green onto everything. The NICU's glass window is crowded as well, men and women pressing as close as they can to their children. Sakura is still asleep, and he holds her tightly.

The glass boxes that house all the infants glow with golden chakra, seals covering nearly every inch of the panels. There are few medics in the room, though, tending to the children.

"Where are the rest of the medics?" Kizashi demands.

"Treating the wounded," the Nurse he'd followed says, eyes shuttering in resignation. "Priority Procedures."

He knows the procedures. Wounded shinobi above non-wounded shinobi, non-wounded shinobi above wounded civilians, wounded civilians above non-wounded civilians. Kizashi reaches out with his chakra to sense into the NICU, can feel that every single infant there has chakra poisoning. Most won't live to see sunset.

"I hate procedures," he says simply, no longer looking at the Nurse.

He finds the small spot of chakra that he has spent seven months falling in love with, almost overrun with sickness. His daughter is small, so much smaller than Sakura was when she was born. It's to be expected of a two-month premature baby, though, and she's larger than some others. Her glass box is in the third row from the window, towards the right, and he moves to get a better view of her. For once, Kizashi does not apologize to the people he nearly runs over with his broad shoulders.

One of the seals on a glass box a few spaces from his daughter's starts blinking. A woman wails at the sight as one medic in the NICU goes to wheel the box away.

Many of the children are wailing. His daughter isn't.

Sakura shifts in the straps of her carrier, blinking her eyes open blearily.

Kizashi's chin wobbles dangerously as he lifts a hand to place a finger in his daughter's palm, almost too big for the tiny hand. "L-look, Saachan. That's… That's your little sister."

Sakura gurgles.

"Ye-yeah," Kizashi chokes halfway through. "She loves you, too."

* * *

Mebuki is allowed to leave only hours later, discharged so that there can be another bed to use. Neither actually leave the Hospital, though, staying at the NICU's window for hours. Eventually, the nurse from before returns and gently orders them to go home.

"If not for your own rest," she says, "then for your daughter's."

She's looking at Sakura when she says it, the infant sleeping fitfully against Kizashi's chest still. She's cried on and off again for hours, hungry and cranky, but healthy according to the Nurse when Kizashi asked that his daughter be checked over. Unlike the twelve children already wheeled out of the NICU. Unlike his second daughter.

"Will you stay with her?" Mebuki asks, her voice still hoarse and tender. "With our baby. Please."

The Nurse can't be more than fifteen, he realizes. She looks a lot older when there's blood flaking off her cheek.

"I will," she promises tightly, reaching out to put her hand on Mebuki's shoulder. "I won't let her out of my sight."

Mebuki closes her eyes and leans into Kizashi's side. "Alright."

The walk home is silent between themselves, aside from the occasional sound from Sakura. Outside the Hospital the smell of smoke and death is overpowering, mass graves already being prepared for the dead. The further from the Hospital they get, the further from the inner part of Konoha, the more destruction there is.

Walls and streets splattered with blood. Bodies covered in white sheets as shinobi move around them to find survivors of collapsed buildings. There is always someone crying wherever they go.

Their home is, miraculously, intact. A few houses down there is a crater where one once stood, and he recognizes the woman who stands at it crying as the granddaughter of the old woman who had lived there. Kizashi knows that the old woman rarely left her house, and knows she is dead.

Stepping inside their house and taking their shoes off, Mebuki heads to the kitchen instantly. Kizashi can hear her getting down bottles and rustling in the cabinets. He sits in the living room on the couch and unstraps Sakura for the first time in a day. She stretches her little limbs out as he sets her down on the couch.

Nothing has changed inside the house. No furniture has moved, there is no dust settling on anything. Inside the walls of his home, he feels disconnected. Even when he tries to shrink his senses only to this single room, the Kyuubi's chakra remains pervasive and present in its echo.

"Darling," Mebuki says, breaking through his thoughts. "Here, eat."

She holds out cup ramen, cheap and salty, but he doesn't mind. She eats her own only after feeding Sakura, pulling their daughter into her lap. Kizashi can barely taste the chicken flavoring in his noodles.

Chakra sensitivity can be somewhat of a curse when it comes to a bijuu attacking. His brain plays on a loop of the first few minutes of the Kyuubi appearing, the blank terror that had rooted him to the spot. As a seasoned shinobi, a soldier and ninja of Konoha, he has seen his fair share of destruction, felt killing intent before - but never has he been rendered so completely useless.

Mebuki is his saving grace, as usual. Placing a hand on his and taking the empty cup from him, she runs her fingers over his knuckles.

"She will be fine," Mebuki says. Kizashi closes his eyes but the sight of his daughter behind a glass prison has been etched into his eyelids. "Kizashi. She will be _fine_."

"We don't _know_ that," he whispers, voice breaking. "Her chakra system was already delicate, the chakra poisoning-"

"Will not take her from us," Mebuki says, voice hard and grip tightening on his hand. "Kizashi, our daughter has endured so much already. She _will_ survive - even if I have to fight off the shinigami himself."

The idea of his strong, amazing wife facing off the grim reaper almost makes him laugh. As it is he only breathes out a shaky breath.

"That should be her name," he says. "Shinobu." _Endurance_.

Mebuki chuckles, and he sees tears in the corners of her eyes. Sakura gurgles around her bottle. "I like it. Haruno Shinobu."

* * *

Against all odds, Shinobu survives. Out of the fifty some children born from the tragedy of the Kyuubi Attack, as it is starting to be called, she is of the ten who survived. Kizashi and Mebuki are allowed to take her home, along with the glass box that keeps her chakra from continuing to poison itself, after a month. Snow has begun to fall.

The weeks following are hard. Shinobu cries and cries and cries, never sleeping more than an hour, but they can't take her out of the box for at least another month. It's torture, not being able to reach for her, not being able to soothe her cries. Taking her out to feed her is dangerous, and sometimes they have to cut feedings short when her chakra starts to revolt against her own body.

The Nurse from before visits sometimes. She'd finally introduced herself as Ohira Seki, and Kizashi wonders sometimes why she continues to come by. Out of pity, maybe? No matter her reason, he is thankful because it means that they get more than once-every-two-week checks at the hospital to make sure Shinobu is still growing alright, still healing.

It's Ohira who diagnoses her with chakra sensitivity, like her father.

"It's a more advanced case," Ohira says to them in their kitchen over tea. "Most likely due to her premature birth and the attack. She shock of her chakra system, which wasn't fully developed yet, against the Kyuubi's… It blew her channels wide open. It will cause her discomfort, and she may never be able to use jutsu."

Mebuki shakes her head. "That's not a concern. She doesn't have to be a shinobi."

For Mebuki, who comes from the refugees of Uzushiogakure, their sister village destroyed in the Second Shinobi War, daughter of a long line of ninja - Kizashi knows that must be difficult to accept, that their youngest will probably never do more than look at a kunai. But he feels exactly the same. Shinobu could be a cashier for the rest of her life and he would be content with the knowledge that she _was_ alive at all.

"Still," Ohira continues after a moment. "Her chakra sensitivity is what is prolonging her illness. I expect that it's going to get worse before it gets better, if it gets better at all."

And it's true. Shinobu runs a fever almost every day, breaking only for a few hours at a time. Keeping food down is hard and sleep is fitful at best. Kizashi keeps a constant vigilance over her chakra, watching and sensing it to the point where the slightest fluctuation has him waking up from deep sleep. The one thing that Shinobu doesn't do much of is cry.

(It is a relief when she's cleared of all chakra poisoning at three months old, around the time Sakura has grown a head full of bubblegum pink hair and stubble starts to sprout on Shinobu's head.)

* * *

 **A/N: Kizashi loves his Strong Wife and is a Good Dad! 3**

 **Anyways, welcome to the start of this trilogy I've got planned out. I've planned 100 chapters for this fic and I'm in the process of actually taking my chapter notes and turning them into full chapters, and I'm starting to plan out the second part. Inspired by the many great SIOC fics I've red, but in specifics, From Outside Eyes by Mysana and Time Flies Like An Arrow by Katlou303. (I only know them from AO3, no clue if they're on FFN.) This fic is edited by Jamie and Beatus, my two bff's!**

 **Comments make my day! I love replying to them and answering questions!**


	2. Arc 1: Part 2

**A/N: Cross-posted to AO3 under the url polyxena_chatoyant. Author notes for chapters one and two are copy pasted from there.**

 **Oh man, you guys! I wasn't expecting nearly as much response to this as I got! You're all so cool! Thank you so much, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the last! It's a little faster paced, I was trying to fit a couple of things in and I've always hated writing the early years of SIOC's.**

* * *

Shinobu sits, propped up by pillows on the couch, a set of wooden blocks scattered around her. She blinks down at them slowly, memorizing the way they're shaped, the color they're painted. Some of them have symbols on them, words of a language she doesn't know. One in particular is red, a deep crimson with a stark black figure painted on one of its sides. It's rectangular, and there are places where the paint is chipped and flaking, but it's well-loved.

 _Why do I have this_ , she thinks. _I haven't played with toys in ages._

Shinobu reaches forward - and freezes when she catches sight of her own hand. Small, with stubby fingers, connected to an equally small wrist. She turns the hand-that-isn't-her-hand over and traces the lines of the palm, trying to remember when her hand shrunk.

It came rushing back then, suddenly. Like watching the tide pulling back into the sea.

 _I didn't shrink._

Like watching the water rising up, and up, and up.

 _I died._

Like a tidal wave crashing into the shore, obliterating everything in its path.

Shinobu opened her mouth, gasping for air, but cotton filled her lungs and sandpaper scraped at her throat. Nothing was safe from the oppressive feeling that something was touching her, that every inch of her was covered in something that wouldn't get off. It weighed down on her like gravity, and she dropped her hand to her side. She couldn't breathe, lips flapping as she desperately tried to get air in. Tears pricked at her eyes.

 _Oh god, oh god, oh god,_ Shinobu thinks, eyelids fluttering. _What is this? What's wrong with me? Why did I come back? Am I going to die here?_

Arms swept her up, her stomach lurching with the movement. Her cheek was pressed into a chest, and under it she could hear someone's heart beating wildly, hear the deep intake of breath through another person's lungs. Someone rubbed her back in slow, soft circles. A low voice murmured gently to her, but she couldn't understand what it was saying.

The vibrations of it through the chest pressed to her were soothing, almost. Like listening to a cat purr. Shinobu blinked, wondering when the last time she had seen her cats had been. They were such sweet fluff balls, always fighting with each other over who got more ear scratches. The memory makes her smile, the movement pulling at her cheeks as though unused to it, and she closes her eyes.

The feeling of being absolutely covered in something doesn't go away. It never does. Shinobu comes back to herself, though, and takes in a deep breath. Her lungs are still filled with cotten, her throat still made of sandpaper, but she breathes despite it. Once, in and out. Twice, in and out. The third time, she opens her eyes on the exhale to peer up at the man she thinks must be her father.

He's still whispering, his deep voice quiet yet earth-shattering, and his forehead is wrinkled. He has blue eyes, she realizes for the first time. The mustache, dusty pink like his actual hair and his eyebrows and even his eyelashes, quivers with every word and the corners of his mouth tug downwards. Shinobu knows he's frustrated and worried, can hear it in his voice and feel it in the gentle way he handles her. Like she's made of glass. Unclenching a fist she hadn't even known she'd starting clenching, Shinobu reach up to pat his forehead with her chubby hand.

 _I'm sorry_ , she wants to say. _You got stuck with me instead of your actual daughter. I'm so sorry._

The man stops rubbing her back to reach up and catch her tiny fist in his palm. He whispers softly, pressing her fingertips to his lips with a gentleness that holds quite a bit of reverence and awe inside it. Shinobu feels like a fraud. She doesn't… She wants to say that she deserves this. There's an aching pit inside her stomach that craves the unconditional love showered on her by this man, but how can she accept that?

She can't even remember how she died. What if she had a killed someone? What if she did something so horrible that she was given the death penalty? Shinobu knows that it's unlikely, knows that she would never intentionally hurt someone else, but when the last thing she remembers is reading Harry Potter in bed before simply existing in blackness before her own birth, she can't help but question it.

 _What if I don't deserve this?_

* * *

The attacks of sensory overload don't end. She gets better at hiding it, though. She doesn't know how old she is, but Shinobu is at an age where her body responds to most things through tears. Reigning in that instinctive response to her own panic is hard, and it takes practice. Practice that sucks.

Shinobu rolls over with a grunt in her crib, landing on top of a plush toy octopus, face pressed into the sheets. It's always easier this way to start with, a physical feeling of being covered or almost unable to breathe. She closes her eyes and thinks about the thick feeling in her lungs, and almost stops breathing.

 _It's fake_ , she tries to convince herself, dragging in a breath. _My lungs are fine. I can breathe. My lungs are fine._

When her heart stops pounding so hard and she's able to count her breaths in and out, Shinobu rolls back over. It's harder to keep focusing on the feeling, then, the itch on top of her skin and underneath her ribs. But she doesn't want to forget it, because it will never fully go away. If she forgets how it feels it will hurt every time. As long as she can still feel it, she can focus on not being dragged down by it.

 _And maybe then I can start focusing on this goddamn language_ , she thinks to herself.

She lets her focus drift away after a while, once exhaustion really starts creeping in. A baby sleeps a lot, she's realized. Shinobu knew it before, but experiencing such a constant level of drowsiness is weird. Almost as though she were a cat who wanted to nap in the sun.

 _Oh god._ Her eyes snap open despite her fatigue. _What if I had been reborn as a cat?_

She tries not to think about it but the thought is in her head now. Confusion and fear, mostly. Shinobu hated not having control over what happened to her, hated not being able to decide for herself. Maybe, if she knew the way she had died, perhaps she would understand. As it is, Shinobu still can't remember what happened.

Which might be the better option, not remembering. In the past, Shinobu has only ever blacked out during traumatic events. Like the car accident when she was fourteen, or the time she fell down the stairs and nearly broke her neck, or the time she got really, really drunk and slammed face first into - not one - but three different tables in the same night. (Oh, her poor glasses.) Shinobu knew that if she couldn't remember the way she died, she shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

 _Still,_ she thought as her eyes drooped and she listened to the soft whistling of her sibling's breath in the crib nearby. _It would've been nice to know if I died heroically._

* * *

Shinobu has found that being read to is the best way to pick up new words. Especially with picture books. So when her new father nears the playpen she and her new sister with a large, thin, yellow book in hand, she drops the toy tiger she had been manhandling and claps her hands, grinning widely. It prompts a laugh out of her sister and a a beaming grin from the man when he scoops them up into his arms to settle on the floor by the couch, back to it. Their mother is draped across it, reading her own book.

Her father settles her on one knee, her sister on the other, and wraps his arms around them so that they won't fall. He holds the book in front of them, effectively boxing them in. If Shinobu falls now, she'll fall inwards and be less likely to hurt herself. She has to admit, her father is very good at dealing with children.

 _Too bad he's not nearly as good a dresser_ , she thinks, frowning at the scratchy feel of his pant leg under her. _Or my real dad._

Shinobu would know, her real dad was quite the asshole.

Her father opened the cover of the book to the title page. Shinobu listened and watched intently as he spoke, with slow enunciation and his finger following the symbols on the page. She had no clue what any of it meant. He turned the page, and taking up the center of it was a drawing of a young boy with long brown hair dressed in armor, holding… Were those knives? The kind she thought were used by ninja. What were they called, again?

Her father reads the page slowly, tracing the words with his fingertips. And then he taps on the little boy's face and repeats one of the words. Hashirama, he said. She wonders if that's the word for boy or the character's name. Assuming the latter, Shinobu examined Hashirama's face. He wasn't smiling, and he stood in what looked like an old fashioned mountain village. Her father turned the page.

The story isn't hard to follow, what with the pictures. The boy, Hashirama, ended some sort of conflict by making friends with another little boy, who's name seems to be Madara. After that it gets wonky, and she's not quite sure what's happening. Did they build a house? Move to a new town? Get married? She's not _quite_ sure, so Shinobu decides to go with all three.

Shinobu wishes there had been stories about ninja boyfriends during her first childhood.

 _I wonder what their views on homosexuality are here,_ Shinobu thinks to herself, listening to her fake father's voice as he continued to read. _I wonder where they stand on the Captain America debates._

The thought made her laugh, the bright sound bubbling out of her chest for the first time in ages. Hearing her own voice was difficult still, and for a moment Shinobu dissociated away from the sound. It was like she was hearing it come through muffled walls as it tapered off into silence.

Her fake father wasn't speaking anymore.

She twisted her neck to peer up at him, eyes latching first onto the metal-plated bandana both he and her mother wore, then to his eyes. They were filled with tears and locked on to hers. His bottom lip quivered as his voice shook his chest.

Shinobu didn't know how to react, still feeling far away.

When he reached a hand up to trace her cheek, the feeling of his calloused fingertips jolted her back into her own body. The suffocating feeling that lingers in the very air she breathes seems to grow and constrict on her, and for a moment Shinobu wants to cry with him.

 _Too bad I'm not your real daughters._ Shinobu can't force her eyes away from his, even as he bundles her up in his arms, passing her sister to their mother, and cries. _You really would have loved her._

* * *

The longer she starts being able to stay awake, the harder it gets. In so many ways.

There are times when Shinobu finds it harder to breathe than to suffocate. She tries to push through and continue to interact with the world around her, but thinking becomes so much harder when it's an effort to force air into her lungs. On the days when she pushes through, the days when she finds no trouble with the layer of whatever in the air and on her skin and in her blood, it's still a struggle. The language barrier becomes less and less of a problem with every day, but…

It shouldn't matter.

It's dumb.

Shinobu wants to accept it, to let herself be happy. Her mother and father, Mebuki and Kizashi, are wonderful. They love each other unconditionally, even she can see that and she's barely more than a year old, and they clearly love her and Sakura, her sister, very much.

It's just that every time she looks at them, she sees who they _aren't_. Her mind grabs onto the small differences between them and her old parents, and won't let them go. With every small act of love on her family's behalf, Shinobu wants to forget that there was ever a family before them. Every time her mother sings a lullaby through the bars of her crib when Shinobu can't fall asleep, suffocating under clean air, her old mother's voice screams inside her head that she's _too loud, why can't she just shut up, so useless!_ Every time her father plays with her, crawling around on the carpets with her as she tries to retrain her legs into walking, she can hear her father's words playing over and over and over - _my daughter, a freak!_

Sakura is the only one safe from it. Shinobu looks at her older sister and doesn't have anyone to compare her to. Her sister is only a baby, but already her heart is so big. It's evident every time Sakura babbles useless words at her when Shinobu dissociates, mimicking the soft tones her father uses to drag her back to reality even if her words don't sound like words. Sakura's love is ever-present and one of the few things Shinobu can latch onto here.

The day that Shinobu finally lays the memories of another family to rest is winter day, a little over a year after her birth. Shinobu and Sakura are at the park, which is lightly dusted with snow, playing with other children. Or, at least, Sakura is playing with the other children. Shinobu doesn't know how to interact with children when she herself is supposed to be a child.

It's different, alright? A sore spot, too, for Shinobu. Once upon a time she had wanted to be a preschool teacher. She had always been praised for her ability to handle kids, and suddenly none of her usual tactics worked!

So, instead, she sat on top of the monkey bars of the playground and watched snow fall from the sky. It had been hard work to climb all the way up here from the ground, especially since she'd only just gotten the hang of walking a few weeks back. Laying down on top, feeling the dig of the metal bars into her small, small body, Shinobu grounds herself in reality.

The sky around her home is blue, just like before, made up of a million different shades at any given time. Right now it looks incredibly grey, clouds covering almost every inch of it. Snow falls in big, fat clumps, the flakes large enough she can see them clearly as the fall past her face. Her breath goes out in warm clouds, and Shinobu smiles slightly. Puffs out a deep breath and thinks about stories of dragons.

 _I'll never find out what happens next_ , Shinobu thinks suddenly. _Sirius just escaped with Buckbeak and I'll never find out what happens in the next book!_

It's a minor inconvenience, and realizations like this have been plentiful. Shinobu has long since vowed to never leave a book series unfinished in this life if she can help it, lest she be left hanging.(Shinobu has had the realization regarding Harry Potter multiple times already. She continues to forget she's made the realization every time, and the shock never gets easier when she remembers it off-handedly again.) Still, Shinobu frowns at the thought.

Without thinking about it, Shinobu rolls over onto her stomach to kick her feet up in the air. Unfortunately, she doesn't get very far. She had forgotten she was on the monkey bars, rolling right over the edge.

"Shinobu!" Mebuki shouts, and the energy in the air _shifts_ and _shrinks_ around her - and suddenly, her mother's arms wrap around her gently, holding her tight. "Shinobu, be more careful! Please don't scare your mama like that again!"

For once, she doesn't feel distant as the energy tries to choke the life out of her. She feels warm.

Mebuki makes a noise of alarm. "Shinobu? Shinobu, honey, what's wrong?"

Her face feels hot and Shinobu sucks in a breath that wheezes around the pinpricks of energy in her throat. Tears gather in her eyes and Shinobu wonders when the last time her other mother had hugged her.

Mebuki doesn't expect an answer.

"Nothing," Shinobu squeaks. "I love you, mama!"

They're her first words, and she's so, so glad they could be something important like this.

* * *

Sakura, Shinobu knows, will be more outgoing than her. She knows this from the moment Sakura's first word is _why_. Her sister doesn't hesitate to demand knowledge, clearly hungry to understand the world around her. Shinobu wishes she had more vocabulary to work with, because every time Sakura asks a question her parents take a moment too long to answer, Shinobu wants to fill the silence.

Shinobu wants to give everything to Sakura. She wants to compile a book that explains _everything_ , if there could ever even be such a book, and read it to her older sister before sleeping. When Sakura asks about the color of the sky, Shinobu wants to explain reflecting light patterns and talk about ozone layers; when the questions are about grass, she wants to dive into biology, no matter how little she knows!

Usually, Shinobu has to wait for their parents to explain, unable to form the words herself. Her parents have shown no knowledge of English, even when she spews the words for hours. Shinobu can't explain anything to Sakura the way she is now, with so little knowledge of her own.

There are, however, questions even Shinobu doesn't know the answer to.

"Mama, what's that?" Sakura asked, sitting in her high-chair and covered in apple sauce from behind her ears to the tip of her nose. Shinobu follows the direction of her hand, pointed dramatically, and looks at the metal-plated headband on Mebuki's forehead.

Their father isn't there, gone to work for the afternoon, and they're eating lunch. Apple sauce and other assorted baby foods. How delicious.

Mebuki smiles, reaching up to trace her fingers along the spiraling, oval-shaped engraving. "This is my forehead protector, I wear it for work." The word for forehead protector locks itself into Shinobu's head, _hitai-ate_.

"Why?" Sakura asks, big green eyes blinking up at Mebuki.

"Because I'm a shinobi of Konoha," Mebuki said simply, shrugging.

For a moment, Shinobu thinks she's heard her own name. It had rolled off Mebuki's tongue as easily as though she'd been discussing the weather.

"What's shinobi?" Shinobu asks, drawing her mother's eye.

Sakura scowls at Shinobu's interruption, but Shinobu only has eyes for her mother. Mebuki seems to draw up against herself, raising her chin and smiling. It's clear she has great pride in her occupation.

"A shinobi," she begins, "is a soldier of the village. We protect Konoha as well as Fire Country itself. Your papa is a shinobi, too."

At the word soldier, Shinobu frowned. One of the few things she'd gotten from her old dad that she didn't outright ignore was her distrust of military. Her father hadn't been a hippie, sure, but he'd never liked the Vietnam War or the Cold War. It was almost ironic, Shinobu guessed, that she was now the child of two incredibly patriotic soldiers.

The way that Mebuki had phrased her answer was also a little off-putting. Shinobu, with nineteen years of worldly experience, knew that a soldier's job included much more than protecting their people. Being a soldier meant bloodshed, and sometimes that of innocents.

Sakura's bright, bubbly voice interrupted her thoughts. "I be shinobi, too! Like mama!"

Shinobu looked over at her sister, a small toddler with a fluff of bubblegum-pink hair and bright green eyes, exuding innocence and niavity. She couldn't see her sister holding a gun or doing anything soldier-ly. The mere thought of Sakura being caught in war was disconcerting.

Mebuki laughed, drawing back Shinobu's attention. Her mother didn't look shaken enough, Shinobu decided. Where was the pale face, the wide eyes, the frowning corners of her lips? One of her cousins from before had gone into the military, and she still remembered the faces of her Aunt and Uncle when their son told them he was willingly going into such a deadly profession. This wasn't anything like that; Mebuki was smiling, the apples of her cheeks full and pink, eyes sparkling.

She looked proud.

"I have no doubt you'll be a great _kunoichi_ ," she said, and Shinobu wondered what that word meant. "But you'll have to wait until you're six to enter the Academy, darling."

Sakura pouted and began to argue with Mebuki, chanting the word now over and over. Shinobu didn't hear much of it at all.

 _I'm sure she meant regular schooling_ , Shinobu tried to convince herself. _No one trains children to be soldiers anymore. Right? Right. Even in this wackadoodle place with no cars but with electricity._

(Oh, how wrong was she.)

* * *

 **A/N: Like I said, writing this chapter was a lot harder than the last one. I liked writing Kizashi because he's as in love with Mebuki as I am with my girlfriend, and I channeled a lot of my feelings for them (my gf) into his interactions with Mebuki. Writing Shinobu, on the other hand, was harder because I pulled a lot from dissociative episodes I've had, which focusing on always puts me in a Mood lol.**

 **But yeah! Meet Shinobu! She's a little different from my typical SIOC, and it's not stated outright in this chapter so I'd love to hear back if you picked up the hints.**

 **All the comments on the last chapter kept me motivated to finish this chapter! I hope to hear more from you all!**

 **EDIT (5/9/2018): Was writing some notes on the timeline and realized I'd gone a bit wonky with the mention of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so I changed the book she was talking about from the fourth to the third. If you hadn't noticed (as mentioned above as the thing about her being different), Shinobu wasn't reincarnated from 2018, which isn't a very important fact at this point in the story, but definitely something I think is interesting! She's from 1999, born in 1980.**


	3. Arc 1: Part 3

**God this took so much for me to actually finish. I'm so unused to actually coming back to things after leaving them for a few days, and this chapter just bored me while I wrote it - I want to write about all the cool stuff that'll happen later on that building the background for it is so much harder. I know what happens in my head and I wish it would just already be written /cries. Looking at it now, though, I like it!**

* * *

Shinobu stares up at the bookshelf in her parents' room. It's tall and made of dark wood, weathered and rickety like it had been picked up off the side of the road and superglued together; it's filled to the brim with books and scrolls. At five years old, she was barely tall enough to reach the second shelf to the bottom. Their parents had filled the first four shelves to the bottom with children's books, all of which Shinobu had read dozens of times to practice her reading comprehension.

What she wanted to read was the rest of the books and scrolls, all of which she knew had more information about chakra and being a shinobi. Shinobu had made her peace with the simple fact that there even _were_ child soldiers in this world, that there were fucking _ninjas_ , but she still wanted to know more about everything. She had spent the last few years of her life feeling absolutely useless. There were only so many days of 'conditioning' (aka glorified yoga with Kizashi) that Shinobu could go through without going stir crazy with how little she actually knew!

Thus, her current problem - the bookshelf.

Shinobu would have simply attempted to scale the shelves to get to the fifth shelf, but she had vivid memories at one Christmas at her nana's when she'd done the same thing. That particular bookshelf had tipped over and fallen onto the baby grand piano her nana adored. She wasn't eager to repeat that, and didn't know if her parents deadbolted furniture to the walls and floors like Nana had after that fiasco.

Sakura wasn't an option, either. She was barely any taller than Shinobu in the first place and, secondly, wasn't home. No one was. Mebuki and Kizashi were both on missions and out of Konoha for at least another week and a half, and Sakura was attempting to make friends at the nearest park. She had asked if Shinobu wanted to come, but Shinobu said she'd rather wait for the rookie ninja team that had been assigned to check in on them daily.

The level of independent autonomy given to literal children in Konoha was sometimes disconcerting. Not even sometimes, it was always disconcerting. Shinobu would gladly take advantage of it, though.

Shinobu fixated her gaze on a scroll in the corner of the fifth shelf, battered and used. The label on it was squished but she could still read what it said: Chakra. This was the scroll she wanted. All she knew about chakra so far was that it was some sort of life energy, gave ninja in this world special powers, and that she had a clinical sensitivity to it that allowed her to sense it as much as she did. Whenever she focused on the feeling of chakra in the air for even a moment it felt as though it was crushing down all around her, squeezing her until she popped and drowning her at the same time.

It terrified her. It was irrational and dumb, yes, but it did. Her parents and her doctor, a ninja-doctor named Ohira Seki, had explained that her reactions to the chakra weren't life threatening, that being able to feel like she was drowning in fresh air didn't mean she was actually drowning, but. But. Fear is not always rational.

 _But I can_ make _it rational._ Shinobu thought viciously, cutting off her train of thought. _The first step to not being afraid of something is to know it inside and out._

She needed that scroll.

Shinobu turned to look around the room, hoping for a step stool but knowing she wouldn't be that lucky. But there _was_ a desk chair, which she hurried over to with clumsy feet. Dragging the chair back to the bookcase was hard work for her tiny noodle arms, but Shinobu managed it. Face flushed bright red and sweat beading on her hairline, Shinobu paused to catch her breath before scrambling up onto the chair.

 _Gotcha!_ She smiled triumphantly as she easily grabbed the scroll.

Moving the chair would take too much effort, Shinobu decided as she simply turned around and sat in it. If she moved it now she'd have to do it all over again to put the scroll back as well. She didn't know how much longer she had until the team got here, so she'd have to read fast.

The roller of the scroll was made of dark wood that had clearly seen better days, and the parchment paper wrapped around it was pliable and soft under her fingers as she unrolled it. The scroll was longer than she'd thought, too; as Shinobu unrolled the scroll she let the roller drop to the ground. It didn't stop until it had reached the bed, at least three feet away.

 _Damn_ , Shinobu thought, scowling. _I'm not going to be able to read this all today._

Still, she had to get started.

The scroll was more advanced than she'd thought it would be, though. Puzzling through the script was hard and she kept having to translate in her head what she was reading to understand it better. Still, she wasn't giving up.

Shinobu had only read five paragraphs by the time she sensed the genin team a street away. She had memorized their energies over the past few days for this exact purpose. Hopping off the chair, Shinobu rolled up the scroll as cleanly as she could as fast as she could, which left a lot to be desired. Looking at the disheveled scroll Shinobu wondered how long it would take her parents to notice.

The sound the front gate through the open bedroom window jolted her back into action. Shinobu climbed back onto the chair to shove the scroll back where she'd gotten it and then took the chair back to the desk. Red-faced and breathing hard, Shinobu took a moment to try and compose herself.

There was a knock on the door.

"Coming!" she shouted loudly and winced at her own voice.

Closing the door to her parents' bedroom as quietly as she could, Shinobu then quietly positioned herself near her own bedroom before loudly making a show of running down the stairs to the door.

The genin team outside the front door looked as bored as they had the previous days they'd babysitted her. Three days into their mission and they'd already lost all hope of it being fun.

"Good afternoon, Shinobu-chan," said the oldest ninja, Sonoda Takeshi. Shinobu thought he looked like a porcupine.

"Hi, Sonoda-ninja-sir!" Shinobu grinned, saluting him. Honorifics were weird for her, unused to using anything other than Miss, Missus, or Mister.

Sonoda laughed, though the kids he was herding didn't seem to find any amusement.

Just as she had the day before and the day before that, Shinobu led them into the house and let them set up shop. Sonoda, she knew, would go to the kitchen to cook lunch. The only girl on the team of twelve-year-olds, Koganezawa Shizu, would be sent to check up on Sakura. The two boys, Sato Daichii and Takei Mizu, would then be put in charge of her.

Shinobu didn't know whether or not she really liked this team. They represented everything she was internally struggling with in this new world, but they were also just children. Unable to decide how to interact with them, she let the boys set the pace. Takei tended to be polite and kind, but distant, always calling her Haruno-chan so she returned the favor. Daichii, though, was more more familiar in his language, calling her Shiichan and Sakura 'Saachan,' so she called him by his first name.

It was Daichii who crouched in front of her after Koganezawa left to find Sakura, a smile on his lips and tugging at the horrific scar that nearly bisected his nose. "So, Shiichan, what do you want to do today?"

Shinobu shrugged, screwing her face up in an effort to convey her personal levels of "No fucking clue" to him. Daichii didn't seem to know either, biting his lip as he floundered for ideas.

Of course, then Shinobu had a great idea.

Holding back a sly grin, Shinobu asked sweetly, "What's chakra?"

Daichii lit up, eyes twinkling as he opened his mouth. As he began to talk, saying almost the same things as the few paragraphs she'd read, Shinobu wondered how such a happy boy had become a child soldier.

* * *

It took her five days for Shinobu to finish the scroll on chakra, sneaking into her parents bedroom whenever she got a free moment from Sonoda's team or Sakura. Occasionally she had to go back and read over sections again to get a better understanding of the foundations of the new parts of the scroll as she progressed, but it wasn't impossible.

Chakra, as both Iruka and the scroll had explained, was the life force of all things. Everything, from a person to a rock, had some amount of chakra to it. Without chakra, there would be no life. How this was documented, the scroll didn't mention, but the implications made her skin itch.

The scroll went on to describe a variety of chakra control exercises, which were meant to strengthen one's awareness of their own chakra as well with manipulating it. The idea of actually being able to control the feeling of drowning, to not be swept under and away was very appealing. Shinobu dutifully copied each and every one of the exercises down, in English, in the margins of her least favorite children's book, _Tales of the Ninja Princess_ , from the bookshelf in her and Sakura's room. There were many of them, the beginner ones ranging from as boring as meditation to weird as sticking leaves to your skin and holding it their with chakra, but the more advanced ones were practically miraculous.

Looking down at the scrunched letters in her book, Shinobu wondered for a brief moment if maybe the churches she'd been dragged to as a kid by her Grandma had been partially right. Maybe Jesus _had_ been real - but he'd been a shinobi. Because one of the chakra exercises detailed how to _walk_ on _water_ , 'aptly' named Water Walking. Of course, she only contemplated her entire first life for a few moments before tossing the theory away. It was, seemingly, an entire different world away where that problem would have any significance. The reality she now lived in had no Jesus.

Still, walking on water…

Shinobu reasoned with herself that chakra control exercises were, in the beginning, supposed to strengthen one's awareness of chakra. She was plenty aware of chakra, aware of it every waking minute. It would be more productive for her to know how to control it.

Setting aside the beginner exercises, Shinobu focuses on the intermediate ones, Tree Walking and Water Walking. Tree Walking was like Water Walking, seen as the easier of the two, and involved using chakra on the soles of the feet to stick to the bark of a tree and essentially walk _up_ a tree.

The idea of falling out of a tree was much more painful than dropping into water. Shinobu knew how to swim, had gone swimming with her parents and sister multiple times in the past few years. There weren't many swimming pools in Konoha, but there were enough to keep her and Sakura busy during the summers. Water Walking was the least dangerous option, if not the easiest, but Shinobu was optimistic about her chances.

But before anything could be done about the situation, before she could practice anything, she needed to find somewhere out of the way with a body of water. Shinobu guesses that she could just do it at a local swimming pool or river, but the very idea of doing so, of having eyes on her, is terrifying. The inevitable questions that would come, first about what she's doing and how she knows the exercises until next thing she knows she's in a lab being _disected_ because they figured out that she's different from a normal kid.

It's an outlandish idea, but it's stuck to the forefront of her mind like a sticky note on a door knob, always there when you plan to leave it behind.

 _No_ , Shinobu decides, _it would be better to not tell anyone at all._

Which is how she's gotten herself into this.

"Shii _iiii_!" Sakura whines from the bedroom door, dressed to the nines in her best overalls and favorite t-shirt. "Put your stupid book down and come on! Sayaka and Sayu are outside waiting!"

Shinobu's sister had been ecstatic when she discussed an idea for a Ninja Game to play, and Shinobu got the sense that Sakura had been put out that her younger sister didn't like to play with in the park like other kids. Sayaka and Sayu were Sakura's best friends, so Shinobu felt she ought to be honored that Sakura would share their presence with her. Shinobu knew that when she'd been a kid in her first life, she'd been a jealous, possessive hellion. By comparison, Sakura was a Saint.

Closing _Tales of the Ninja Princess_ , Shinobu smiled at her older sister. "I'll be down in a moment, why don't you wait outside for me?"

Sakura shrugged, as though this mattered little to her and she hadn't just been urging Shinobu to hurry up. "Fine, slowpoke."

Shinobu grinned after Sakura left, amused by Sakura. Her sister was so cute, pretending to be so grown-up.

The game of Ninja that Shinobu had suggested was a Recon Mission. Sakura, as leader of their team, was on the search for poisoned water sources, all of which were surrounded by trees as their only information to work on. If they found the poisoned water, then they could successfully cut off its flow to the village, thereby saving the lives of hundreds.

Shinobu picked everything out for the fake mission for a reason. The water was obvious, but she knew that things surrounded by trees were less likely to be seen, and the whole thing about the background was designed to make Sakura and her friends feel like they were actually on a mission.

She may be using Sakura to find herself a secret training spot, but that didn't mean Shinobu couldn't make it fun for her sister!

Outside, Sakura was standing with Sayaka and Sayu, two dark-skinned, blonde-haired, twin daughters of Lightning Country immigrants. One of them had long cornrows and the other had an afro pulled back into a bun. They all turned to look at her when Shinobu stepped out of the front door, clicking it shut behind her.

"About time!" one of the twins said, though Shinobu couldn't tell which she was.

Shinobu rolled her eyes and turned her head to speak to Sakra, brushing back one of her two braids of dusty-pink hair. "I left a note for Daichii's team on the kitchen table."

Sakura's eyes widened, mouth dropping open to from an 'o' shape. "I forgot about them! Good thinking, Shii!"

The other twin cut in. "Alright, alright, what's the mission, captain?"

Sakura flushed red high on her cheeks, before smiling tightly. Shinobu ducked her head to hide her own smile at her sister's blatant pride at being addressed as so. "Right, Sayaka! Hokage-sama has tasked us with locating a hidden pond connected to the village's water systems that's been poisoned by Kumogakura ninja!"

The twin Shinobu was sure was Sayu cut in, scowling. "Why does it gotta be Kumo-nin?"

Shinobu winced. Sakura had added on that part herself, working on the stories their parents had started telling them ever since the near-failed peace treaty with Kumo three years back, when the delegation from Kumo had attempted to kidnap some rich kid. Most parents had started telling their kids those stories, cautioning against following people with dark skin into strange places. While good advice, Stranger Danger-wise, Shinobu had always felt a bit ill at the racist undertones of the stories. And since Kumo was in Lightning, Shinobu realized that Sayaka and Sayu had probably been dealing with racism for years already.

It wasn't a good thought to realize, and Shinobu stared down at her sandals. Her toes peeked out, with chipped red nail polish on them.

"How about they were Iwa-nin?" Shinobu said to her feet.

Sakura, who had also fallen silent at her friend's show of displeasure, nodded eagerly. "Yeah! Iwagakure is a bunch of rock babies who would love to poison Konoha! It had to be them!"

Sayaka smiled, satisfied by this, and reached out to hold her twin's hand. "And they definitely framed the Kumo-nin, so by finding them we'll save them from punishment!"

Sakura grinned widely at the twins. "Yeah! So now, we've got to find the pond! Intel says that it's isolated, and surrounded by trees. Where do you guys think we should look first?"

"There's some training grounds with a bunch of trees near our house," Sayu said, brushing back a cluster of braids behind her ear.

Sakura nodded, pumping a fist. "Let's go!"

Sayu and Sayaka lived in a small house in a small neighborhood towards the edge of Konoha, so it took a long time to walk there from the district that Shinobu's family lived in, Hana District, which was filled mostly with refugees from the previous wars and was closer to the center of Konoha. As they walked, Shinobu couldn't help but wonder at the strangeness of her village. There were street lights and power lines but the roads were all packed dirt and there were no cars at all.

Just another strange thing, she decided, which she would have to ignore.

Shinobu followed a few paces behind her small rag-tag 'team,' focusing on memorizing the path they were taking. She hadn't much of a chance to go further out of her District for more than a few streets, and Konoha was… big. A more apt description of it would be a city, but whenever she thought of cities she thought of skyscrapers and sun-warmed concrete and asphalt.

Sakura, she noticed, seemed to thrive on being the leader of the team. Shinobu smiled fondly as she watched her sister march in front of the twins with determined steps, bossing the other two around.

The twins took it with good natured smiles, though Sayu was more argumentative than Sayaka. The three of them had a good dynamic together, and Shinobu felt almost like an outsider watching them interact. Whenever Sayu and Sakura started to argue, Sayaka would slip into the conversation with a smile to calm them both down. Sayu would follow Sayaka's lead, then, and quiet down, which usually made Sakura think more about whatever she said to make Sayu mad. Her sister would then turn and apologize once she had figured it out.

They were good friends, and Shinobu was glad her sister had them.

It also appeared that they weren't planning to let her keep her distance any longer. Just as they had passed the last building in a district, the last one until the long dirt road would lead them to the twins' district, Sayu had turned around and doubled back to walk next to Shinobu.

"You don't get out much, do you?" Sayu asked, slipping her arm through Shinobu's tightly. Her eyes, which were dark enough that Shinobu couldn't tell pupil from iris, were focused intently on her.

Shinobu swallowed and smiled thinly. "Ah, yeah. I like to read, usually."

Another arm slipped into her other, and Shinobu turned to see that Sayaka was on her other side. The twins had boxed her in, and Shinobu was forced to speed her walk up to keep up with both of them lest she fall over and drag the girls down with her.

"Reading's fun and all," Sayaka said with an agreeable smile, "but getting out to play is always good for you!"

Sayu snorted and rolled her eyes. "You're only saying that because that's what dad said to you."

Sayaka stuck her tongue out at her sister, and Shinobu watched their interactions with a small smile.

"Keep up, team!" Sakura shouted, at least three feet further down the road than them. Her sister looked over her shoulder and grinned at Shinobu, which she returned whole-heartedly.

"Yes, captain!" Shinobu called towards her, and moved faster with the twins.

The training grounds that Sayu had been talking about were actually on the way to the twins' house, and they turned off the road towards it sooner than Shinobu thought they would. The training ground had a small, grassy field, but mostly consisted of forestry. There was a chain-link fence around the perimeter to keep out kids like them, but Sayaka led the team around the fence until the field couldn't be seen at all.

"Sayu and I sneak in through here all the time," she told Sakura and Shinobu with a mischievous grin as Sayu pushed away some underbrush from the fence. There was a hole in the bottom, perhaps made by some wild animal, and big enough for a kid to fit through. "We like finding abandoned kunai."

Shinobu held back an instinctive cringe at the thought of children making a hobby out of collecting abandoned knives. Such was the happenings of Konoha, though.

One after another, they crawled through the hole in the fence and into the forestry. The trees were tall, towering over their heads and Shinobu wondered if there were any trees as tall as this from her old home. Why did they grow this tall, she wondered. Was it chakra? Something about the soil? Her skin itched with all the theories bubbling up in her head, but Shinobu didn't have the time to look into it.

Sakura put the twins in charge of leading, then, because they knew the area much better than either she or Shinobu. Sayu and Sayaka argued for a few minutes about where to start first, before eventually just settling on a direction to walk in.

The training ground's forest hid at least three bodies of water according to the twins. There was a stream that ran through it and connected to the Naka River and two ponds in offshoots from it. They found the stream first and followed it until they found the first offshoot.

The pond it led them to was more like a small lake, deep and wide, the water dark green. As soon as they had caught sight of it, Sakura had cheered.

"How do we know this is the poisoned water?" Sayaka asked, not celebrating like Sakura.

The question made Sakura pause, and Shinobu watched her sister's quizzical expression. "Um…"

Sakura scratched her chin, and then turned to look at Shinobu imploringly. It made her blink in surprise, since Sakura had seemed to self-assured up until now. Did she think Shinobu would come up with something?

Sakura's expression became even more pleading the longer Shinobu stayed quiet, so she must.

"We swim in it," said Shinobu, the first thing that popped into her head. When Sayu and Sayaka turned to her, both confused, she elaborated. "That way we know if it's poisoned. If we ingested it, it would kill us, but skin contact only...only… it turns us purple! Yeah. So if we turn purple, we'll know it's the water."

She cut herself off before she could ramble any longer. Sakura grinned at her, which made Shinobu feel better that her sister didn't think it was a dumb idea. Sayaka shrugged and nudged Sayu with her elbow.

"Last one in's a Kiri snack!" she shouted, and then jumped in fully clothed, sandals and all.

It was hilarious enough to see her twin's face, horrified at Sayaka's now soaked form, that Shinobu couldn't help it. Her mouth fell open as she cackled out a laugh, one hand flying up to cover her mouth as she doubled over with the force of her laughter.

 _It was just like a little kid_ , she thought with a smile, _to not take even her shoes off._

Sakura wasn't one to be left behind and barely took the time to toe her sandals off before following Sayaka into the water. The splash sprayed water onto Sayu and Shinobu, who were staring at the grinning girls in the water. Shinobu glanced at Sayu, who looked exasperated.

"Dad's gonna be so mad," she muttered, but toed her shoes off and followed the other two, leaving Shinobu standing by herself.

Sakura deliberately splashed at Shinobu, grinning. "Come on, Shii! A team has to stick together!"

Shinobu pinched her lips together and thought about it. On one hand, she didn't want to get her clothes wet and have to walk around damp all day. It wasn't practical or hygienic, and Shinobu felt like she was much too old to be jumping into lakes willy-nilly. On the other hand, she _had_ been the one to suggest it, and it wasn't like anyone else knew she was older than five. It wasn't like she was here to practice chakra control _now_ , either…

Shinobu took the time to take off her sandals and place them together rather than the thrown-about placements of Sakura and Sayu, and take her shorts off before jumping in. The water was cool, which was a good contrast to the humid heat of Konoha, and she surfaced grinning at Sakura. Fish, used to strange occurrences it seemed, brushed against her toes and knees. It was a strange feeling and made her giggle.

"Anyone purple?" Sayu called to them, swimming through the water like she'd been born in it.

"Not yet!" Sakura called back. "Keep swimming, give it time!"

And swim they did, almost forgetting about the mission as the sun went lower and lower. It couldn't be seen through the trees, but it could be felt in the air, how it cooled and became darker and darker.

The day officially ended when Koganezawa and Daichii showed up, with furrowed brows.

It was then that Shinobu remembered that they weren't supposed to be on training grounds.

"Sakura-chan! Shinobu-chan!" Koganezawa said sharply with a frown, and Shinobu heard Sakura squeak. "It's time to go home!"

"But _Shi_ zu-san!" Sakura whined, swimming towards the edge of the pond with Shinobu.

"Nope!" Koganezawa shook her head and crossed her arms. Beside her Daichii rolled his eyes with a slightly irritated expression. "You two should know better than to go to a training ground! You're just little kids."

Shinobu scrambled for her shorts and shoes, unsure of how to act around Koganezawa. Would the genin try to ground them or something? How would she enforce it?

"Aw, come on, Shizu-chan," Daichii said, rolling his shoulders. "They were just swimming, no harm done."

Koganezawa through him a poisonous look, before catching sight of the twins in the water. "You two! Out of the water as well!"

The twins looked different as they got out, and it wasn't just because they were dripping wet. Their faces were blank and guarded, and they looked at the genin with distrust in their eyes, holding tight to each other's hands. Shinobu didn't have to wonder why for long.

"Names, now," Koganezawa ground out, standing over the twins like a gargoyle.

"Komukai Sayu," Sayu introduced herself tersely. "This is my sister, Sayaka. We live in the Hoshi District in the apartment above the bakery. Our dad is a legal citizen of Konoha, and we were born here just like anyone else."

Shinobu felt her blood cool as Sayu talked, and watched how Koganezawa's expression didn't change. She hadn't thought the older girl would act like this; sure she'd been cold and distant to Sakura and she, but never outright _mean_ like this.

 _I guess this world isn't as different as I thought_ , she thought morosely. Her father had always had the same expression whenever confronted with anyone from eastern Europe.

"We'll see," Koganezawa said tersely, raising her nose at the twins.

Sakura scowled angrily at Koganezawa. "They're telling the truth, Shizu-chan! Don't be such a...such a racist!"

Shinobu ducked her head to hide her smile. She wished she were as brave as Sakura, but she feared what the genin would do in retaliation now that she'd been called out on her actions.

Daichii, though, didn't hide his grin. "Yeah, Shizu-chan, stop being _racist._ Sayaka-chan, Sayu-chan, run along home now, okay?"

The two didn't waste any time, shooting off into the forestry. Not towards the way they'd come, either, but towards the field. Shinobu knew it was so that the genin wouldn't find their hole in the fence.

Koganezawa through a pissed off look at Daichii. "I'm telling sensei."

And then she was gone. Daichii sighed, shoulders drooping as his teammate disappeared from sight.

"God I can't wait till…" he trailed off, noticing that Shinobu was peering at him curiously, trying to hear him. Shinobu wondered what he was waiting for. "Alright, girls, let's get you home!"

* * *

Shinobu waited in bed until she heard Sakura's soft snores from her bed for at least an hour before slipping out of bed and pulling the clothes she'd hidden under her pillow on. Dark shorts, dark red shirt, and a dark hoodie. She even put her hair up into bun to hide under the hood. Once she was dressed, she quietly slipped out of the room and down the stairs.

It was almost odd to walk around the house at night, when her parents weren't up and about in the living room. The house felt completely different at night, and even though Shinobu knew it was only in her head, it put her ill at ease and made her steps quicker as she slipped out the front door, locking it behind her and hiding the key in her pocket.

The night air was cool on her skin compared to how it had felt earlier, and there were few spots in the sky uncovered by clouds. Good, less light to see her with. Shinobu followed the path she and the other girls had taken earlier this day, sticking to the sides of the roads and moving quickly. There were still people out and about in some places, but the only people awake at these times weren't likely to stop and question her. Still, Shinobu made an effort to go around rather than through places frequented by ninja.

Finding the chain-link fence around the training ground was easy, but it took Shinobu at least thirty more minutes to find the hole that Sayaka and Sayu had shown her and Sakura earlier.

Once she was in, she followed the fence's perimeter until she found where the stream flowed in, and then followed it down until she recognized where she was. It wasn't long before she was back at the pond from earlier in the day. Looking around after her eyes had long adjusted to the darkness, she could even spot the shoes that Sayu had abandoned in her rush to leave before Koganezawa could say anything against Daichii.

"Alright," Shinobu said aloud, and cringed when her voice seemed to shatter the night around her. Continuing in a whisper, she said, "Let's do this."

Speaking aloud to herself had always helped her with learning the language in the years past and had since become a habit.

Shinobu threw her shoes off, as well as her clothes. If she fell in, she didn't want to be completely soaked, and it wasn't like someone was going to yell ather for being naked. Standing on the edge of the ground, toes barely touching the water, Shinobu closed her eyes. There was no need for her to _reach_ for her chakra, as it was always present. Instead, she just allowed herself to think about it rather than viciously ignore it. Almost instantly, she could feel the pathways that ran under her skin congruent with her veins, flowing with rolling energy; she could feel the chakra in the air around her, in the ground beneath her toes and in the fish swimming through the water.

She fought to focus only on the chakra in her own body, taking deep breath after deep breath despite feeling like she was drowning in fresh air. It took time, and she messed up multiple times before she finally found a balance between focusing on her chakra and her regular senses. She was shivering in the cold air by then.

Following the flow of chakra to her feet, Shinobu tried to study how it interacted with that of the ground beneath her, how the ground felt different from the water. The scroll had said she would have to try and match her chakra's frequency to the water's in the way it matched the ground.

Lifting her left foot, Shinobu placed it just on the top of the water. She could feel it on the soles of her feet, but it didn't cover her toes and that's where she wanted it. Twisting her chakra, which was a lot like trying to tie a knot without using her hands, Shinobu tried to find the right frequency.

She knew when she'd gotten it right because when she next shifted forward, her foot didn't go under water. The pond's surface didn't feel sturdy, not at all; it felt like a waterbed, almost, or a trampoline. Still, it was enough that she was able to shift all her weight to her left foot. Carefully, Shinobu took another step forward with her right foot, and found herself standing completely on the water. It wasn't much, as just a few inches below the surface was the ground, but it was…

 _Amazing_ , she thought, staring down at her feet on the surface of the water.

She moved forward, walking on the water like a baby gazelle with how much her legs shook with the effort to maintain her chakra frequency. Soon enough she stood in the middle of the pond's surface, watching as curious fish swam up to investigate the soles of her feet.

At first their attempts to investigate made her giggle - until one nibbled on her toes unexpectedly. Shinobu gasped, ripping her foot off the surface and losing her balance. Falling backwards as her arms pinwheeled, Shinobu instinctively twisted her chakra to try and match her frequencies in her hands so she could catch herself, but splitting her focus had her slowly sinking into the water and then -

Shinobu slipped under the water, gasping involuntarily and swallowing a mouthful of water. Her focus on her chakra slipped and then it was all back, all-consuming and terrifying. Her world stretched far and wide whilst also attempting to squish everything into her skull and Shinobu couldn't tell up from down as she flailed about in the water, drowning both in reality and in chakra.

 _I don't want to die_ , she thought brokenly as she inhaled another gasp of water.

Just as her vision started to dim, someone ripped her from the water with a tight grip on her bicep.

She fell against the grass next to the pond, coughing and sputtering water and trying to blink it out of her eyes. Something fell on top of her, soft and dry, covering her skin from the cool air, and a large hand whacked at her back to help her upheave the water in her lungs.

"I'd ask what the hell you were doing, but it was pretty obvious," said a voice, masculine and exasperated.

Shinobu looked up at her rescuer.

It was a boy around Daichii's age, with paper-pale skin and close-cropped black curls and a hitai-ate around his forehead. His eyes were too dark to tell the color of at the moment, and he was dressed like her parents were whenever they went to work, in navy pants and long-sleeved shirt, but with no green flak jacket in sight.

She looked down and realized he had covered her with his flak jacket.

"I," she croaked out, and then coughed, her throat sore from the water. "I, uh, wasn't doing anything."  
She'd have to find a different pond, she thought to herself. Nothing deep enough where she could drown. Or maybe it would be fine if she just stuck to the edges of this one - but no, now that she'd been caught she couldn't come back to this one.

"Liar," the boy said, crossing his arms as he stood over her. "Who taught you how to do that? That chakra exercise is way too advanced for you."

 _Dammit_ , she thought to herself. "Nobody taught me. I read it in a scroll."

This time, he seemed to believe her. He looked down at her with a blank expression, eyes like the void and somehow disapproving. He placed one hand on his hip and rubbed at his nose with a sigh.

"Jeez…" he drawled. "If I made you promise not to try anything like that again, would you listen to me?"

"Yes," Shinobu lied without hesitation, and realized she really needed to do some damage control. Fear sparked in her mind as she stared up at the ninja who had caught her.

What if he told her parents? What if they questioned how she was able to understand the scroll? What if they _found out_?

"You'd be back here tomorrow night, wouldn't you," the boy said, but didn't seem to direct it at her. "Great. _Great._ Fucking genii."

Shinobu swallowed, itching to get to her clothes and run.

"Alright, kid," the boy said, seemingly having decided something. His face was still blank. "Here's the deal. You need supervision, and I _know_ that no clan kid would be allowed to wander off like this, so you probably have none. And me? I'm gonna have to be responsible. I _hate_ being responsible. Ugh."

Watching someone ramble when their face didn't seem to show any emotion was one of the weirdest things Shinobu had ever seen. She really had no clue where this was going, but she didn't like the sound of anything he was saying. When people talked about being responsible they usually meant going to their superiors or the authorities.

And then he threw her for a loop completely.

"I'll train you on one condition," he said. Shinobu's eyes snapped from her clothes to his face, incredulous. "You can't reveal that you're a prodigy, kid. Prodigies don't survive long. So you can't tell your Academy teachers anything about this, if they haven't figured it out already."

Shinobu knew her mouth was dangling open, that she looked like a drowned cat with her hair plastered to her forehead. She couldn't help it. What kind of thought process did this dude have?

"Who the fuck are you?" slipped from her lips, her first slip up in _years_ , and she snapped her mouth shut so fast her teeth slammed painfully together.

He didn't seem to think anything of it. "Uchiha Shisui, but you can call me Shisui-sensei! Get dressed and I'll drop you off at home. We'll start training tomorrow after the Academy lets you out."

She hadn't even agreed!

She felt like she was on a bad high as she got dressed with jerky movements, Uchiha turning away when she stood up from under his flak jacket. He picked her up from under her armpits and carried her to the road so fast that the scenery blurred around them. It made Shinobu dizzy.

"Alright, kid - wait, what's your name?" Uchiha started.

She really didn't want to tell him. "Momo."

"Sure it is," he sighed. "Well, that can be what I teach you _after_ chakra control, how to lie well."

 _Fuck you_ , she thought viciously. "Fine. It's Shinobu."

Uchiha snorted. "Of course it is. Which direction, Shinobu-chan?"

"Hana District," she said instead, with a scowl.

She'd play along just long enough to find out if he'd go to his superiors about her, and then she'd figure out what she'd do. And maybe, she realized, she could take advantage of this.

 _Still_ , she thought as Uchiha dropped her off at her doorstep and disappearing without another word to her. _What a weirdo._

It was only later that she realized he thought she was in the Academy and would probably be waiting at the Academy for her tomorrow. Shinobu didn't even know _where_ the Academy was, let alone when its hours of operation were. Uchiha would just have to find her, then.

Hair still wet from the pond, Shinobu slipped back into bed fully clothed and fell into restless sleep.

* * *

 **I feel like the ending was a little fast, but that's just how it is lol. This chapter ended up being more than 2k words longer than I'd planned, and I ended up leaving out quite a bit that I'll write for the next chapter instead.**

 **ANYWAYS! End of Arc 1! I'm gonna go back and edit the chapter titles to show the arcs lol.**

 **Thank you all for your comments, they really helped motivate me to keep coming back to finish this chapter! I hope you all continue to read and enjoy Shinobu's tumble down a hill that is her life.**


	4. Arc 2: Part 1

**A/N: This chapter, I don't know how to feel about. I wrote it in one day, which was a miracle compared to the two weeks chapter three took out of me, but still.**

* * *

Shinobu sits in a secluded part of the backyard in a tree, the genin team inside playing with Sakura. Every now and then, Daiichi will come out to check on her, but mostly she's left alone. Koganezawa was mysteriously absent. In her hands, _Tales of the Ninja Princess_ is held open as she goes over her notes in the margins. Ever since she'd woken up, she'd been forcing down the panic at having been caught by analyzing the feeling of her chakra the night before.

Her musings were interrupted when the tree shook slightly under a new weight. Shinobu looks up, and locks her gaze with another that's only inches away.

A hand claps over her mouth before she can let out a scream.

Uchiha's gaze is blank and his face neutral, but there is annoyance in his tone. "Why didn't you tell me you weren't an Academy student yet?"

The initial terror was fading, leaving on irritation in its wake. She opens her mouth, ready to bite down on the hand still covering her mouth, but Uchiha pulls it back too fast.

"Feisty," is all he says to that.

"Asshole," she spits at him, the word dripping with derision she doesn't normally allow herself to express. "Not my fault you're too dumb to guess my age correctly."

Uchiha tilts his head, one of his big, glossy black curls falling into his face. It's a pretty face, objectively, but she can't associate it with anything other than fear. She feels helpless again, panic rising in her chest. He has the power to undo her, and Shinobu desperately doesn't want to find out what damage a ninja village could do to her if they found out her secrets. The helplessness, the panic, it churns inside her until it forms into anger.

"Hmm, I guess you're right," Uchiha says, and all at once Shinobu's been thrown off her game. His face is still eerily blank. "Still, you shouldn't call your Shisui-sensei names, Shinobu-chan. Come on, let's go."

Then, with no warning, they're moving. Just like last night, the scenery blurs around them and her stomach flips at the speed, threatening to crawl up her throat. Uchiha has her thrown over his shoulder this time in a fireman's carry. She's still carrying her book, so she grips it hard in her tiny fists and closes her eyes.

 _Daiichi's going to freak out_ , she thinks suddenly. _I didn't tell them I'd be leaving._

She only opens her eyes when Uchiha tosses her onto the ground, and blinks slowly as she takes in the clearing. Surrounded by tall, thick Hashirama trees, like most of the trees in Konoha, the grassy clearing seemed lived in. If a clearing could seem lived in, that is. There were kunai and shuriken stuck in some of the trees, some scrolls scattered on the ground next to a glorified fanny pack with ambitions of being a purse, and two bento boxes stacked on top of each other. All the clearing was missing was a tent and she'd call it a campground.

"This is where I like to go to train," Uchiha said, his voice bringing her back to the reality. "Let's eat before we begin. Chakra control is energy intensive."

Shinobu's stomach grumbled at the very mention. She thought about the food Sonoda had been cooking last time she'd checked and sighed. Accepting the bento Uchiha handed to her, she busied herself with opening it rather than watch him settle down across from her on the grass. It was rice. Just rice. A box full of rice, with disposable chopsticks taped to the inside of the lid.

She looked up and met Uchiha's expectant gaze.

"I wasn't sure what you would like," he said to her. "So I just made what I would like. It's very filling, good for a growing ninja!"

He sounded so enthused about eating what looked like half a pound of rice, but his face was so blank she still couldn't tell if he was just messing with her. Shinobu glanced at his bento, and, yup, it was also just rice. Uchiha seemed to be expecting something. Probably a thank you.

Shinobu wondered how long it would take before she figured out whether or not he was going to turn her in. "Thank you."

Uchiha made his first facial expression, a smile. It was small and lopsided, but it was there; boyish and pleased. "No problem! Let's dig in."

Uchiha didn't hesitate, but Shinobu's brain had frozen at his smile. Until now she had been interacting with him like she would any other adult had they caught her. Despite his ramblings, his blank, mature gaze had put her on edge. But that smile, so innocent and relieved that she hadn't hated the bento he'd made her… Shinobu ran over the conversation again in her head, despairing.

 _He's just a kid_ , she thinks with some level of hysteria. On auto pilot, she picks up her chopstick and shoves a mouthful of rice into her mouth, staring into her bento as though it held all the answers to the universe. _Just like Sakura. Just like me._

She kept shoveling rice into her mouth until she felt like she was going to burst, only halfway through. Trying desperately to ignore her own epiphany, Shinobu shoved the remainder of the bento at Uchiha, who shrugged and ate the rest. He'd already finished his.

"Alright!" Uchiha said, clapping his hands together. "Let's start with the basics. Sensing your own chakra."

Shinobu opened her mouth instantly. "I already-"

"Know how to do it, yeah, yeah," Uchiha rolled his eyes, another sign of humanity, and waved his hand dismissively. "You're, what, six? You can know the theory all you want, but we still need to start small. Start meditating."

Shinobu gritted her teeth. Kid or not, Uchiha was irritating and a bulldozer. She thought rather viciously that if this was how he interacted with people, no wonder he trained in such a secluded area. No one probably wanted to deal with his holier-than-thou attitude.

Still, she had promised herself she'd go along.

Shinobu settled down, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. Focusing on her chakra was easy, because it was always in the back of her mind. But the chakra in the air, in the grass under her, in the trees - it threatened to overwhelm her once she let herself immerse into the feeling.

Shinobu took a deep, forced breath. _My chakra, not everything else's. My chakra, not everything else's._

The mantra helped, somewhat. It still felt like there were ants crawling on her skin, like there was cotton in her lungs and sandpaper in her throat, but the longer she tried, the smaller her senses got until all she could sense was herself and the layer of natural chakra surrounding her.

It was like floating, she thought distantly. Shinobu could hear her heart thump slowly in her chest, and it was like she could hear her chakra moving in time with her blood, moving throughout her body. She could feel every individual blade of grass press into her legs, could feel every brush of the wind into her very soul.

Chakra, she realized, moved like water. It had a tide, almost - a push and pull motion that swept through her. She swayed with it, and thought she could taste seawater on her tongue, salty and thick. It was warm.

For the first time in this life, she felt safe and at ease with the power simmering under her skin, choking the air from her lungs. If she died now, drowning in the chakra, Shinobu didn't think she'd be angry.

"-nobu!" a hand shoved her shoulder, and Shinobu gasped, falling backwards onto the grass.

The world crashes in on her like a tidal wave as her awareness snaps back to it's usual distance and Shinobu feels like she's dying. She gasps for breath but can't take any in and it's been so _long_ since this happened. Tears well up in her eyes but she closes her eyes as if she can ignore the tracks they make down her temples and over her ears.

One breath in, hold. Let it out. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

By the time Shinobu has come back to herself, she feels exhausted and sore. Her hands ache, and she realizes she gripping handfuls of grass and lets the mangled greens go. Her heart pounds as though she'd run a marathon.

Uchiha is mumbling to himself, she realizes.

"Didn't know she was a sensor," he mumbles, and there's visible anxiety in his body as he rubs the palms of his hands over his knees over and over. "Fuck, I'm going to need a medic. She'll get found out, oh god, this is all my fault."

He sounds so scared. Not for himself, though.

Shinobu closes her eyes again and breathes. How irritating that he had to go and be so human.

"I'm fine," she croaks, and then winces at the sound of her voice.

"Shinobu!" Uchiha is at her side in an instant, hands hovering as though he doesn't know if he's allowed to help her up. "I'm so sorry, Shinobu-"

"It's not your fault," she says, pushing herself off the grass to a sitting position. "I didn't tell you, and I should have."

Uchiha shook his head, staring at the ground. "I should've known. I'm sorry for putting you through that."

Shinobu wanted to groan. _Save me from self-made martyrs._ "It happens, don't worry about it. Let's just move forward, Uch- Shisui-sensei."

His face was still blank, but there was a light in his eyes that wasn't there before as he looked at her. "If you say so, Shinobu-chan."

They continued to work on chakra control, but now Shisui seemed to hover nervously around her. That is, after dumping a pile of leaves on her and telling her to make them stick to her. And then the bastard had the gall to laugh at the leaf monstrosity she had become on his order.

 _I take it back_ , she thought with a snarl as the weirdo laughed with a blank face. _He's a menace, not a kid._

* * *

In hindsight, she should have expected this. Staring down at the piece on the kitchen table, Shinobu was silent as Sakura babbled her excitement to their mother. Mebuki had returned three weeks back and hadn't been on a mission out of the village since, while Kizashi was still running around Fire Country somewhere for his plethora of missions. She was almost grateful for that, because if her father were here, he'd be able to tell she was upset by the forms.

At the top of the paper were the words _Academy Entrance Exam Application_.

Most of the papers had already been filled out by Mebuki, but she and Sakura had to sign it themselves. It was perhaps the only reason they were seeing the papers. Shinobu wondered that if it weren't for that, would Mebuki and Kizashi have dropped the girls off at the Academy with no warning?

"Now you can start being kunoichi like me!" Mebuki was saying with a large grin. "And like the Ninja Princess!"

Shinobu looked up and stared at her mother, who was looking at her now. "What?"

Mebuki didn't take back the words. "I was so happy when you started carrying that book around! Not that I wouldn't have been happy if you didn't want to be a kunoichi, but I'm so proud of you for wanting to be a shinobi of Konoha!"

It felt like the life drained out of her as she realized what her mother was talking about. The book she'd been making her notes in, studying from. _Tales of the Ninja Princess._ Her mother thought she wanted to be a ninja, a child soldier trained to kill from the age of six.

Shinobu wanted to curl up and cry. This was her own goddamn fault. She'd made a mistake and now the consequences were heavy.

Shisui often talked about her future days in the Academy, but Shinobu had brushed them off because she _didn't want to be a shinobi._ The thought of killing another person, of causing pain with deliberation - of being part of a military dictatorship, because that was what Konoha was - repulsed her. It wasn't even that she was a pacifist. Shinobu remembered plenty of times in her old life where she had fought with others. But it had never been in true anger, never with the intent to kill.

She hadn't even thought about it. It just hadn't been a factor to her, being a shinobi. She let Shisui train her because she needed to understand chakra, needed to be able to go through the day without falling to pieces when she took too deep a breath. Not because she wanted to be a contract killer.

And now, because she chose the wrong book to write notes in, that's what she's going to be trained to do.

"Shinobu? Honey?"

"Sorry," she said instinctively. "What'd you say, mom?"

Mebuki laughed, reaching out to pat her head. "You're always lost in thought, better stay out of the clouds in class. Go on and sign it, we've got to get these to the Academy."

Shinobu's hands only barely hesitated as she signed the paper, where Sakura's hands had been quick and sure. Her mother didn't seem to notice.

"When are the exams, mom?" she asked as they went to put on their shoes.

"In two hours!" Mebuki said with a smile.

Sakura grinned, slamming her feet into her shoes so fast the heels got stuck under her feet. "Let's go then! No time to waste!"

Shinobu felt like there was a computer dialing up in her brain. "Oh."

The computer in her brain continued to whine the entire walk there, Sakura's babbling like white noise.

 _Of course it's today_ , she thinks glumly, holding to Mebuki's hand while Sakura had the other. Her fingers tightened in the application, wrinkling it.

The Academy was set towards the base of the Hokage Mountain, which to Shinobu seemed like a more politically correct Mount Rushmore. This one, after all, wasn't a sacred native mountain defaced by colonizers. Below it was the Hokage Tower, and connected to that was the Academy. It was a large building, with even larger training grounds surrounding it.

It was also far from empty, despite it being late in the afternoon. Even from down the street Shinobu could hear - and sense - dozens of people inside the building. Their chakras blurred together into a blinding light, making the cacophony of voices seem almost ethereal.

Mebuki pulled them into the building and for a moment, Shinobu was reminded of the days before middle school, when her old parents took her along with them to pay for tuition and such. Folding tables were set up everywhere, with shinobi manning them and long lines of parents and their kids standing before them. It was so mundane that for a moment she almost forgot what she was about to sign up for.

"That's our line!" Mebuki said, pulling them forwards towards one of the first few tables.

Among the first few signs were the two Entrance Exam tables. One was labeled clearly for civilian-background applicants and the other for shinobi-background applicants. Mebuki led them to the second, and noticed Shinobu's curious looks at the signs.

"The civilian parents have to fill out more paperwork, generally," she told Shinobu, and then when she realized Sakura was also listening in, to her. "The parents have to be in the system as well as their kids, so it's like double the paperwork."

Shinobu winced in sympathy, remembering the scourge of paperwork.

"Sakura! Shinobu!" a voice shouted.

Sayaka and Sayu were three places in front of them in line, standing with a tall, dark skinned man who had thick dreads down his back. Sayaka, her afro pulled out of her face with a bright yellow headband, was waving wildly, while Sayu, her braids pulled into a ponytail, looked bored at the whole affair. Their father looked up, smiled at them all.

"Oh, are these the friends you two are always going on about?" he said, his voice a deep baritone that almost reverberated through the room. He then waved the people between them forwards in line, moving back to stand with the Haruno's. "The twins talk about your daughters all the time. You must be very proud."

Mebuki smiled kindly at the man, and they both bowed slightly in greeting. Shinobu wondered if anyone in this world shook hands at all. "I am, and I'm very thankful my girls found such good friends. We always had trouble getting Shinobu out of the bookcase and into the sunshine before they became friends. Haruno Mebuki, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Komukai Hinata," he responded in kind, a charming grin on his face. "So, are you a shinobi or…?"

Mebuki nodded. "Yes, I'm a Chuunin, as is my husband Kizashi."

Komukai's chakra seemed to move slightly at the words, and Shinobu's eyes darted to him. Whatever emotions he had felt were strong enough to do that, which happened sometimes to people though Shinobu was never able to tell what they were feeling.

"That's really amazing," he said. "I'm a civilian myself, but-"

An elbow slammed into Shinobu's side, the air in her lungs leaving her in one great swoop as she doubled over. Sakura, whose boney elbows Shinobu knew by heart, snickered. The twins had swarmed the two sisters, and seemed to already be talking. Shinobu had missed the start of the conversation.

"I'm so excited!" Sayaka said with a wide grin, clapping her hands lightly. "We've always wanted to be kunoichi."

Sayu nodded, a small smile lighting up her face. "We've read all of our mom's old scrolls about taijutsu and kenjutsu! We're going to be the best swordswomen in Konoha!"

Shinobu wondered, then, if their mother was on a mission like Kizashi.

"Cool!" Sakura said, holding her hands to her cheeks as she stared, wide eyed, at the twins. "Shinobu and I don't know what we want to specialize in."

 _Story of my life_ , Shinobu thought with some amusement. She never knew what she wanted to do with her future, and was content to let Sakura decide. If she had to be a contract killer, she could at least follow her sister and keep her safe.

Sayu didn't seem to think any less of them for it. "You'll figure it out. Do you guys think the exam is going to be hard?"

Sakura shrugged. "Who knows? I can't wait to find out!"

"But what if it is?" Sayaka said, wringing her fingers together. "What if we fail?"

"If we fail," said Shinobu, "Then we get up and try again, because every failure is a chance to do better."

She had tried and failed to internalize her own philosophy in one life, but maybe in this one she could do better. Now that she thought about it, what if she simply didn't graduate from the Academy? Surely dropping out wouldn't be that hard. Then she could just become another face in Konoha, spend her days in the library and bothering Shisui.

"Jeez, Shinobu," Sayu said, a lopsided grin on her face as she nudged her. "You sound like an old lady."

"A _smart_ little old lady," Komukai cut in, crouching down to be on their level. He grinned at Shinobu, and up close she could see that his eyes were a dark gold color. "You girls would do well to listen."

The twins groaned and rolled their eyes, but didn't move away when their father reached out to ruffle their hair.

Despite the conversations between the two families, the world continued on and the line moved forward. After the paperwork was filed, the four girls were led by a friendly Academy teacher to a classroom filled with other kids their age. Seating assignment was random, and Shinobu ended up on the opposite side of the room from Sakura, seated between a boy with red triangles and a girl with purple hair. Every student was given a test by a teacher making rounds around the room; it was multiple pages long and the boy with the triangles groaned as he checked the page count.

 _Wonders never cease_ , Shinobu thought, reaching up to brush a lock of pink hair. _I wonder what makes these colors natural._

Before she could explore the idea further, the teacher now at the front of the room called for attention.

"Alright, everybody!" she said, smiling at the kids. "When the hour is up I'll collect your papers. Don't cheat! And...start!"

Shinobu lifted her pencil and carefully penned her name. She always had to be careful when she wrote what others would read, because otherwise her handwriting was slanted and messy.

The Entrance Exam, she decided later as she walked quietly with Mebuki, Sakura, and the Komukai's to a barbeque place to celebrate the start of the girls' careers as ninja, was the easiest test she'd taken since high school.

* * *

The Academy is a mixture of horrifying normalization of murder and children's education. She and Sakura weren't in the same class, but she was in the same class as the twins so it was alright. Whenever there was joint physical training between their two classes, the girls stuck together like glue, with the twins right there with them. Her days are spent trying to maintain a middle status as a student and attempting to ignore her own morals while doing homework.

Shisui had started training her on lying as well as chakra control, after congratulating her on getting into the Academy. According to him, it was best to stay in the middle range as a student; not too good that they'd realize she was a prodigy, but not too bad that she'd be dropped from the classes instantly.

Which was actually something she didn't want to happen, surprisingly. Sure, the whole murder schtick was terrible, but Shinobu couldn't help but admire the way ninja sparred. She couldn't help but think back to the days when she felt scared to walk down the street in a dress and knew that if she had had training back then, she wouldn't have worried as much. The idea that she could use these skills to keep herself safe as well didn't seem too bad.

 _Fourth year_ , she decided as she and Sakura walked home after work, _was when I'd start trying to get dropped._

It was around that time that they started on jutsu, which she didn't give a shit about.

As they neared their home, Shinobu faltered in her pace. Sakura glanced over, a bit curious, but Shinobu shook her head dismissively as she regained her footing. Hopefully her sister would think she had just tripped.

There were three more chakra signatures in the house than there should be. Two of them she recognized; her teacher in class as well as Sakura's. The other one, which burned brightly and bore down in the air like a physical manifestation of doom, she didn't recognize. Her parents were also there, but their chakras weren't agitated.

Shinobu reached out and squeezed Sakura's hand, her sister automatically linking their fingers together. Why were her and Sakura's teachers here?

"We're home!" Sakura shouted as they entered the front hall, tripping out of her shoes in her haste. Shinobu took hers off more slowly and put them away in the corner, whereas Sakura left hers spread across the front mat.

"My girls!" Kizashi shouted from the kitchen, and only a second later he skidded into the hall with enough enthusiasm on his face to equal Sakura's. He scooped up both of them, Sakura over his shoulder and Shinobu dangling in the air with an arm under her stomach. "My favorite training weights! Oh, how I missed you!"

Shinobu couldn't help the smile that spread across her face as her father's presence put her at ease. " _Dad_ , you saw us only eight hours ago."

"Eight hours too long," Kizashi said definitively, spinning in a circle and causing Sakura to shriek in laughter. "As much as I would love to hear about your day, girls, your mom and I have visitors. Go play outside, will you?"

Shinobu felt the dread double in size in her gut, her stomach twisting into knots. Her heart pounded.

"Okay, daddy!" Sakura said happily and when Kizashi sat them down, she grabbed Shinobu's wrist and drug her outside.

In the backyard, Sakura went point blank for their favorite climbing tree and started to scale the bark. Shinobu drifted after her, feeling quite distant from it all. She stood at the base of the tree and watched her sister climb higher and higher, until all she could see through the branches were Sakura's pink locks.

"Get up here, Shii!" Sakura demanded.

"Coming," she mumbled, and reached up to grab a branch.

At the top of the tree, Sakura had faced herself towards the house. There was a frown on her face. Shinobu wondered if her sister had any secrets like her for a moment, before dismissing the thought.

"Do you recognize who's here?" Sakura asked, and Shinobu flinched so hard she started to fall back off the branch she sat on. Sakura's hand snapped out to steady her.

"What?" Shinobu asked, lips flapping like a fish.

Sakura rolled her eyes, turning to look at her. "You're a sensor, dummy."

"Oh," Shinobu said, blinking. "Oh, yeah. Um. Two of them are our Academy teachers - both your's and mine - but I don't know who the third is."

Sakura let out a long hum. "Wonder if we're in trouble."

Shinobu traced the back of her teeth with her tongue and tried to think of the lies she and Shisui had brainstormed. "Well, have you done anything wrong?"

Sakura snorted. "No, Kiba is the only one in class who breaks the rules."

Shinobu didn't know who Kiba was. "Well then you're safe."  
"What about you?" Sakura asked. "Did you break a rule?"

"No," she lied instantly. Sakura looked at her out of the corner of her eyes. "Maybe."

Sakura's eyes lit up. " _Shut up_! What'd you do?"

Shinobu almost smiled at the words, which sounded strange when not in English but were so ingrained in her that even Sakura started picking them up. "I dunno."  
Sakura smacked her shoulder. "Come on, tell me!"

Before Shinobu could cave, because to her sister she always caved, her father peeked out of the house and looked straight to the tree.

"Shinobu, can you come inside?" he asked, and the serious tone in his normally mirthful voice had her heart skipping a beat.

 _This is it_ , she thinks as she climbs back down the tree in silence. _This is how I die. Again._

She stopped dead center in the kitchen doorway when she saw the mysterious third person. The Third Hokage, the Sandaime, sat at the kitchen table with the Academy teachers across from Mebuki.

He was short, with a hunched posture, and his skin was tanned and leathery. He was dressed in white and red robes, and he had a short, pointy beard and a big nose. On his head was a hat that the Academy lessons had forced her to become very familiar.

Kizashi pressed a hand into her back to force her to keep walking, leading her to the seat between his and Mebuki's. For one hysterical moment, she wondered when they'd gotten extra chairs. Had the Hokage brought them?

Her hands were clammy but she didn't move them. Shinobu felt nauseous as she stared back at the quiet gaze of the military dictator of Konoha. Without thinking, she swallowed around the lump in her throat and took a shaky breath. The Hokage's eyes followed the movement of her throat and then went back to her eyes.

"Shinobu, introduce yourself," her mother ordered quietly. Shinobu glanced at her, but her mother wasn't looking at her.

"That's quite alright, Mebuki-san," the motherfucking Hokage said, and smiled down at her. The grandfatherly face was at odds with how dangerous his chakra felt. "Hello, Shinobu-kun. Do you know why we're here?"

Shinobu would like to say that she kept her cool. After one lifetime and training on lying, she should, realistically, be able to.

In reality, Shinobu has always been emotional.

She burst into tears, bowing her head to hide her face. "I- I'm sorry! I jus-just wanted to stay with Sa-Sa-Sakura!"

Her father's hand rubbed her back, and she could feel in his chakra that he was barely holding himself back from doing something. Probably comforting her, she thought, which only spurred more tears on. Her father still loved her and she was still going to die.

"Sweetheart, calm down," Kizashi murmured. "You're not in much trouble."

Tears still ran down her cheeks in rivers as she looked up at her dad, who looked...amused?

"What?" she asked, reaching up brush away tears.

"Shinobu-kun," said the Hokage. "Do you recognize this test?"

Her teacher, Yamamoto-sensei, a kind man who Shinobu had been sure she'd tricked, slid across a paper. And of course she recognized it. It was a test she'd completed three days ago about Konoha history. It was graded, too, with a bright red mark showing 73% on the top.

"Yeah," she said quietly, glancing up. The Academy teachers didn't look very mad, and neither did the Hokage. Just very blank, like Shisui when you didn't look close enough.

"This is the same test a fourth year could complete," Yamamoto said, and her heart dropped. "Shinobu-kun, just because we're Academy teachers doesn't mean we're dumb. Did you think we wouldn't notice that all your test scores were the same numbers cycling?"

Shinobu opened her mouth, and then closed it. Because she had, hadn't she? She had underestimated her teachers, had forgotten that just because they were in a classroom didn't mean they weren't as sharp eyed as any other ninja.

 _This is_ Tales of the Ninja Princess _all over again!_ She thought with despair.

"We noticed by the end of the second week of school," said Sakura's teacher, something Iruka. He had a scar across his nose that went so deep every breath he took sounded like a wheeze through his nose. "Yamamoto-sensei and I compare notes frequently, and at first we wondered if it was both of you, but Sakura-kun's results are genuine."

Shinobu wilted further into her seat. They'd known two weeks in? Half of the school year was already finished!

The Hokage seemed to notice her discomfort. "Don't worry, Shinobu-kun. You'll have a month of detention, but that's your only punishment."

Shinobu gaped. "Really?" Was she really scot-free?

"And congratulations," the Hokage continued, as though she'd never said a word. "You're being moved up to the fourth grade class. Someone of your intellect would be wasted in the lower years, not learning a single new thing."

He said it like it was a gift. It felt like a death sentence. This was everything Shisui had been afraid of. Shinobu wondered if he would be disappointed in her, and then told herself it didn't matter. She was going to be dead before she was ten at this rate.

Everyone was staring at her, Shinobu realized.

"Uh," she blurted out, and then swallowed. "Thank you?"

Her mother sighed and Shinobu winced. The Hokage, though, smiled gently. He didn't seem offended.

"I'll be sad to see you go," Yamamoto said with a grin. "You're the only one who can keep the twins in line."

Shinobu forced out a laugh. Sayaka and Sayu had made a name for themselves as classroom pranksters, though they directed most of their efforts to kids spouting off racist bullshit they got from their own parents. What she did was hardly 'keeping them in line.' In fact, Shinobu usually helped, and Yamamoto knew that. Did no one say the truth around here? Shinobu had thought she was an outlier.

"We'll take our leave, now," said the Hokage, moving to stand. "Thank you, Mebuki-san, Kizashi-san, for hosting us this afternoon."

They swept out of the house as though they hadn't just upturned Shinobu's life on her head.

* * *

 **A/N: Here's something that baffles me: I've got a document dedicated to my OC's for the story and I still somehow manage to create even more on the fly. If y'all would like to know, yeah, Hinata was trying to flirt with Mebuki lmao.**

 **Comments motivate me, and I'm so thankful to everyone who has left comments so far. You guys rule!**


	5. Bonus Chapter 1

**A/N:** **So, this was supposed to be a scene at the end of the last chapter, but I was so goddamn tired from typing that I was just like "fuck it whatever" and left it out. But then I realized it's a good scene to have, because it shows how the dynamic between Shinobu and Shisui is changing, and also gives Shinobu and chance to just decompress. I was going to have it in Shinobu's POV, but Shisui was really begging to shine through.**

* * *

Shisui stands on a rooftop in the middle of Konoha, and closes his eyes. Tilting his head up towards the setting sun, he imagines all of his worries melting away from him. His body aches with the pain he endured this mission, from the deep tissue bruises to the field-healed gash on his back. He knows he doesn't look inconspicuous; any ninja with half a brain would see he looks like he's just back from a mission, and that his pristine Chunin uniform doesn't add up. But it's not like he can wear his trashed ANBU one at this moment, so he relies on the fact that people tend to avoid him.

Still, he just wants to take a moment to breathe.

This past mission had been hard. Not like any of them weren't, but this time he'd killed an innocent. She had seen too much, and he wasn't with his usual Captain who would have let it slip through the cracks. No, he'd been with Bear instead of Wolf, and because of that a woman only a few years his senior had died under his hands.

It wasn't new, it wasn't unusual, but it weighed on him all the same.

 _I'm just glad Itachi wasn't assigned to this one_ , he sighed, blinking open his eyes. His little cousin was too soft hearted.

Just like another soft-hearted genius he knew. Shisui stretched out his neck and shoulders, feeling the crackle and pop of his joints, and reached out with his limited chakra sense to pinpoint his student's location. It was routine for him at this point, to check that she'd not been whisked off to Torture and Interrogation whilst he was on missions; almost always he found her chakra at her house, sleeping so close to her older sister's that their chakras mingled and overlapped, seemingly one person.

Not tonight, though, he noticed. When his sense reached the Haruno's house, there were only three chakras there. Anxiety sparked in the bottom of his stomach, and traveled up his spine like a crescendo before he could stop it. Brow furrowing, he searched a wider radius.

Shinobu had better not have gotten snatched. Shisui knew her skills and intellect would be more than valuable to less than savory people. Danzo himself came to mind as the first person who would take advantage of her at any given opportunity.

Then, his chakra brushed over her's. She was at their training ground. For a moment, he wondered how she knew where it even was. Every time he'd taken her there, he'd deliberately gone fast enough to make her head spin and lose track of where, exactly, they were. Shisui was impressed, despite himself.

 _But why is she there?_ He asked himself. _She's usually eating dinner around this time._

His body ached and throbbed like one giant bruise, and he should really go to the Hospital, but he didn't want to go back to an empty house right now. Shinobu, on the other hand, had a presence to her that always made Shisui feel a little less lonely. Like whenever he was with Itachi, or helping Fugaku and Mikoto and Sasuke. If he went to his cousins, though, there would be pointedly not-questions and mothering; Shinobu didn't bother with any of that, not usually.

He let himself wander the village in the casual direction of the training ground. It was dark and the moon was just beginning to show by the time he got to the clearing, with no ROOT agents on his tail. Shinobu was still there, and the closer he got the better he could sense her chakra. It was still, not fluctuating like she was doing any actual training.

That fact was confirmed as soon as he caught sight of the clearing.

Shinobu lay sprawled on her stomach in the middle of the clearing, face pressed into the grass and her limbs spread out. She was still in her day clothes, he noted, tan shorts and a short-sleeved red qipao shirt he knew had the Haruno circle on the back. Her hair, which was usually braided back, was loose down her back and hid the white target-like symbol.

She wasn't dead, of course, but he thought she might be sleeping from the slow, deep breaths that moved her back. If she weren't asleep, she would have already stood up to start insulting him.

Shisui threw himself off the tree branch and landed silently next to her. He tilted his head and looked down at the only-recently six-year-old, hands on his hips.

"Shii-chan?" he asked lightly, using the nickname that Shinobu hated him knowing. Her chakra spiked instinctively, and he knew she wasn't asleep. When she didn't react, he frowned. "Shinobu-chan?"

Still, no reaction. He reached out to lightly kick at her sandals.

 _Movement!_ He thought vindictively.

Shinobu turned her head so that she could look up at him with one eye through the curtain of her dusty-pink hair. The dark green that he was so accustomed to was barely visible through her drooped lids, but Shisui was a shinobi. The telltale irritated whites of her eye, the dryness of the skin under her eye - Shisui felt his previous anxiety spike again, and he held back a twitch in his fingers.

His student turned her head back into the ground. Shisui clicked his tongue in vague annoyance.

"Shinobu, what's wrong?" he asked, dropping the honorific to convey the seriousness of his question. Besides, his little student always responded better to that, the rude shit.

She grunted at him, and he was reminded so strongly of Itachi for a moment he nearly saw black hair instead of pink. With another deep sigh, he dropped to sit next to her on the ground, wincing when the movement tugged at his wounds. Then, he reached forward, gripped the girl's opposite shoulder, and rolled her over. Half of her rolled onto his legs, but he didn't care, keeping a grip on her when she tried to roll away.

Her face was even worse than the single eye he'd seen. It was pale, splotchy around her nose and eyes, and there were dried tear tracks on her cheeks. Shinobu glared up at him with venomous eyes, scowling. He didn't believe the expression for a second.

"What happened?" he asked again, more gently, looking down at her.

Tears welled up in her eyes and Shisui froze.

 _Oh no_ , he thought, alarms blaring in his head. _I don't know how to deal with this. Please don't cry. Fuck, what was it that I said?_

Shinobu closed her eyes as if she didn't want to look at him, tears falling past her temples and dribbling over her ears into her hair. Shisui tried to think about what to do - he'd masqueraded undercover as a normal kid before, what would an adult have done for him at this age if he'd started crying? The only references he really had were of his own family. The Uchiha were not outwardly emotional. They loved fiercely and deeply, but you wouldn't know it by watching them interact.

He swallowed and tried to think of what his older brother would have done. He could barely remember Obito anymore, aside from the memory of his bright laughter and tight hugs.

 _Aniki_ , he prayed with despair. _You should be here, not me._

Shinobu had stopped crying at this point, face bright red with the exertion of it, and her lips trembled. Her eyes weren't wet anymore when she opened them, though.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, voice wobbly.

Shisui had never once heard her like this. Shinobu was like a little spitfire around him, when she let her mask of incompetence drop. She reacted to almost everything with hostility, with deep frowns and piercing, intelligent eyes. She was more like an Uchiha than a Haruno, he'd often thought, frequently comparing her to Itachi, and even to Sasuke.

Shinobu didn't _do_ vulnerable. Or at least, he'd thought she hadn't. In the end, though, she really was just a kid. Too bad Shisui had no idea how to deal with kids.

"What happened?" he questioned for a third time, quietly this time.

Shinobu's lips thinned and she looked away, whispering. "I got caught."

Those three words turned his blood to ice and set her off crying again. His hands shook as he ghosted his eyes over her form, checking for wounds and such. He lifted one hand, to grasp her chin and turn her face so he could look at every angle, even as she cried, snot starting to dribble out of her nose. Shinobu cried with an open mouth, sobs falling from her lips, and so he had a clear view of her tongue. No seal.

He closed his eyes. _Oh thank god._

She wasn't tampered with. She was safe and in his arms. He hadn't failed her, not completely yet. Shisui's mind ran over their training, wondering where he had messed up, what he had failed to convey or forgotten to teach. Dozens of possibilities floated through his mind, and with each realization of his failures, he felt his shoulder curl inward as he leaned over her, as though he could shield her from his own mistakes.

They had only known each other for a year, but Shisui had taken the responsibility for her the moment he'd dragged her out of that godforsaken pond, naked and drowning. Whenever he wasn't on missions, wasn't with Itachi, or training by himself, he was with her. He knew her favorite color and her favorite animal, knew she loved her sister with a fierceness that rivaled Sasuke's adoration of Itachi, knew she struggled with her own senses, and knew that she hummed when she was thinking. She had her own code that even he couldn't crack, which she used to take notes. She had a foul mouth and enjoyed sweets.

And every single one of those things could be erased from her if Danzo decided she would make a good ROOT recruit. Shisui was still avoiding having to give his answer to the war hawk, haunted by what he'd seen in the facilities, and he never wanted her to experience any of this.

"I- I'm sor-sorry," Shinobu gasped out, reaching her hands up to cover her face. "It's all my fault. I wasn't careful enough."

Her words were like the handle of a kunai slammed to his temple. Shisui reached and pried her hands from her face, rubbing his thumbs into the palms as he turned her hands over. Shinobu was too much like Itachi, always taking the blame when it wasn't hers to bare.

"Tell me everything," he ordered. "We'll figure this out."

She nodded, sniffing as a few more tears trickled out of her eyes. "My teacher noticed a pattern in my test scores the second week and talked about it with Sakura's teacher, and they told the Hokage. I should have thrown in more variations, I'm sorry. They were at our house after school and they confronted me. They gave me a months worth of detention a-and…" Shinobu's bottom lip quivered. "They moved me up to fourth grade."

She said it with such despair, like all her dreams were crashing down around her. Shisui could think up a dozen different outcomes that would have been worse. This, though, was perhaps the best outcome aside from nothing happening at all.

"That's not too bad," he tried to reassure her with a small smile. She closed her eyes, face still showing despair. "Chin up, Shinobu! This changes things, yeah, but not terribly. We can speed up your training, and I can start teaching you taijutsu! Maybe even shunshin! And now there's a reason for me to be publicly interested in you, as a fellow prodigy, so we could-"

Shinobu burst into another round of sobs, rolling off his lap to press her face into the dirt once more. Her arms, crossed and trapped under her, gripped at her sides. Her wails were quiet but they still caused a sense of alarm in him. Had something else happened?

"Shinobu?" was all he could force out, reaching down to pick her up.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd held a child like this, pressing them into his chest and letting them wrap their arms around his neck and grip for dear life. He couldn't remember the last time _he'd_ been held like that. It was something he'd seen parents do at playgrounds, when their children tripped and scraped their knees; what civilian parents did carrying their children into hospitals because they fell out of a tree and broke their ankle.

Shinobu felt awkward in his arms, yes, but he held her tight all the same. She was, after all, his student. His to teach, his to take responsibility for, his to comfort, so he had to try.

She cried for a long time before the sobs pittered out and she breathed in gasps against his chunin vest. "I never wanted to be a shinobi."

The admission was quiet, whispered against his chest and it made his mind screech to a halt.

"What?" he asked, stupefied. "Of course you wanted to be a shinobi, Shinobu. That's been the whole reason why we've been training, so that you'd be safe as one."

Her breath hitched, and she shuddered in his arms. "No, that's why _you_ decided to teach me. I… I just… I wanted to understand chakra. I didn't want to be afraid of it. B-but I didn't want to be a-a shinobi."

She had started crying again.

"I didn't want to hurt people," she sobbed.

She sobbed into his vest for a good twenty minutes. Shisui was silent the entire time, mind running in circles. He felt like the biggest idiot in the world. Looking back to the first day they'd met, he realized where exactly he had made the first crucial mistake. Any regular prodigy he'd met hadn't started out learning chakra control. Not even him.

When he had first started learning about being a ninja, back when he was maybe four, Shisui had grabbed the first scroll on Fire Release and attempted to use it. He'd nearly burnt the house down, too, had it not been for his brother's timely intervention.

Shinobu hadn't started with a jutsu. He had theorized that she was simply that much a prodigy, to know she couldn't attempt to run before learning to walk, but clearly it hadn't been that. No, she had deliberately started on chakra control because of her chakra sensitivity, to learn to control it. And all Shisui had done was assume and assume and assume.

 _And she was too stubborn to say otherwise_ , he sighed. _She took my warning to heart and hid it from even me._

"I'm so sorry," he said, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. "I should have known. I shouldn't have pushed you to be a shinobi."

Shinobu shook her head, but didn't move. "It's not your fault, idiot Shisui-sensei. I could have told my parents no. I could've been more careful. I was just gonna drop out and go to civilian school when we started on jutsu. But then I had to - to go be an _idiot_ and get caught, and n- _now_ they'll watch me and I ca-an't drop out… Shisui… I'm so scared."

He closed his eyes and felt closer to tears than he'd been in years. Even if she was smart, even if she thought she knew, Shisui was the teacher. He was the older one, and at fourteen he should have known better. This could have all been never a problem had he just stopped to _think_ last year. Shisui had doomed a girl who didn't want to be a shinobi to a life of blood and tragedy.

He could only hope that one day, when he reached the Pure World, Obito would forgive him for dooming a child.

"What do I do, Shisui?" the girl wrapped around him asked, and her voice reminded him of far too many teammates who had given up hope and gone on missions above their skillset just for an out.

Shisui bit the inside of his cheek so hard it bled. "Well, Shinobu… We move forward."

Where forward would go, he didn't know. But he would be damned if she would go forward alone.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Because this reached nearly 3k words, I decided to make it an entire chapter by itself. Otherwise, I would have added it on to the start of the next chapter, but then I realized next chapter has is after a small timeskip (do I look like I want to write about two boring years of Shinobu angst when there's so much more drama and shit to come after she graduates? fuck nah) and thus it wouldn't really. work. ya know? And then I was like "hmm maybe I'll do a side fic for Twister that's just entirely bonus scenes that I want to write." but was also like. no. I don't want to do that. So instead, if I write bonus scenes/chapters, they're just going to go into this story. When I'm writing fics 2 and 3 of Twister, and there's bonus scenes/chapters there, they'll go with their respective fics, too.**

 **Thank you guys so much for reading and enjoying and commenting! I would have never imagined that "sepia toned" would gain so many readers so quickly! I read every single comment and reply to them all, so don't be afraid to leave one because you think I wouldn't care!**

 **I talk a lot about the fic on my tumblr so if you want to ask for spoilers (hint hint please do I'm dying to spoil it ughhh) hit me up! It's apvrodite there.**


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